back to article New cig peril: Third-hand smoke coats puffers in poison

US federal boffins in Berkeley, California say they have discovered yet another deadly hazard associated with smoking. They also raise warnings regarding the perils associated with electronic cigarettes. The dangers of actually smoking a cigarette, and those from breathing a smoker's "second hand" smoke were well-known: but …

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  1. T-Bizzle

    What next?

    Apparently graveyards are to be condemmed, it appears that dead smokers can omit high levels of dangerous nicotine 2-300 years after their death.....

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Do I hear?

    The sound of yet more jackbooted feet crunching in unison on the gravel? A few months for the Macbethian witches in the labour spin department to whip everyone into a suitable froth and it'll be perfectly legal to kill smokers on sight, provided you have been CRB approved and decriminalised, you do it with a non-locking blade of less than 3 inches bought using the appropriate uk.gov ID, and you don't use a large, black camera to photograph any police who may attend the scene to arrest any innocent bystanders who look guilty, perverted or non-CRB exonerated.

    Nice touch that, getting the kids in there, cos we'd do absolutely anything for them, unless we have something to hide (like a morbid dislike of other people's spoiled, mannerless offspring, for example.)

    The Final Solution for smokers - coming soon to a Town hall near you!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Dear world....

    It has taken some time, but on this, the eve of my 30th birthday, I have hereby lose faith in you. I now await the sweet cold embrace of cancer-induced death.

  4. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    OMG OMG!!!111!!!!1!1!!!!1

    Smoke kills you!

    Alcohol kills you!

    Salt kills you!

    Sugar kills you!

    Butter kills you!

    Bread kills you!

    Red meat kills you!

    White meat kills you!

    Knives kill you!

    Cars kill you!

    Planes kill you (and the Polar bears)!

    Peanuts kill you!

    Water kills you!

    Internets kill you (or at least make you pervert)!

    Now, quick, give all your money to the Government and die, before something else killed you!

    1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: OMG OMG!!!111!!!!1!1!!!!1

      New research suggests moderating comments (especially the kind you've moderated a gazillion times before) kills you. I think I've got about a week left before I... ack... gag... oh no... estimates... inaccurate... I regret... n-nothing... see you... in hell... mother...fu

      *thud*

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        I am sorry

        I apologise for any anti-moderating offense I may have inadvertently committed but I still insist that my comment was not in any way less stupid or unoriginal or politically engaged than the phenomenal piece of research lying at the base of this discussion. In other words I maintain that it was totally in line with the level of scientific enquiry set by the honourable researchers at Berkeley.

        1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

          Re: I am sorry

          Oh yeah. It's just that I am somewhat jaded having read all these arguments expressed almost word-for-word in the same cod-satirical fashion several times before. It's not your fault. You're just doing what you do.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "You're just doing what you do"

            A put down of pure, understated class.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Down

          @I still insist that my comment was not in any way less stupid or unoriginal or politically engaged

          that's your opinion, bud, but you could be a bit harder on yourself

  5. Andy 17
    Stop

    All I can say to that is..

    ODFO!

  6. tiggertaebo
    Alert

    Not convinced

    Sounds like a serious amount of scaremongering going on here. So essentially its fumes from things like diesel engines (already fairly toxic) interacting with smoke residue left behind on fabrics to produce other toxic fumes. They talk about how it can persist in fabrics for days etc etc.. given how (in the UK at least) people are having to smoke outside anyway the only fabrics affected will be clothes, which get washed alot. Somehow I think they are somewhat overstating the risk here.

    Do these experts wear tinfoil headgear? Can they occasionally be heard muttering about the sinister actions of "The Man"? Oh and I'm sure they all drive Priuses as well :D

    1. Steve X
      Coat

      Priuses

      Oh, not Priuses, not anymore. They're deathtraps now, haven' you heard? (and because of a programming error, so there's even an IT angle here!)

  7. Wayland Sothcott 1

    Working with children

    I don't think we should stop people smoking, it's their right afterall.

    However they should be prevented from working with children. The system is already in place for this.

    Also they should not become parents. This is harder to enforce but perhaps when parents go for fertility treatment they should not be given it if they smoke.

    The HPV vaccine programme will have a benificial effect on future childrens wellbeing because the potential parents will need fertility treatment and can be screened for suitablility then.

    Eventually sexual equality can be achived by sterilising women after first storing their eggs. Babies can then be raised in safe secure national facilities without the neet for women to take time off work.

    Perhaps all that wasted energy of children running arround could be harnessed by keeping them in safe secure pods and hooking them up to the national grid thereby creating a completely green carbon neutral power source and reversing Global Warming.

    With children brought up by machines it would also have the added benefit of keeping them away from ciggarettes and paedophiles and ensure they are all treated equally.

  8. Dr. Mouse

    OK then...

    If it's so dangerous, ban smoking.

    In the same vane:

    * Ban alcohol because of the amount of trouble it causes

    * Ban cars because of the number of road deaths

    * Ban TV and computer games because it causes obesity in kids

    * Ban fatty foods because they cause all sorts of health problems

    * Ban knives because they can cut

    * Ban food which hasnt been reduced to a milkshake-like consistency because people could choke on it

    * Ban movement because people can hurt themselves (twist ankles / fall over etc.)

    I am a smoker. I don't like the ban on smoking in pubs, especially pubs like my local where the majority of people smoke, so the pub seems empty until you get to the smoking area at the back, but I live with it. I respect others right to choose, so I wouldn't even smoke in my own car with a non-smoker if they didn't want me to, or in my own house. Can other people PLEASE respect my right to choose and stop with this bullshit research which is never backed up by real evidence?!

  9. Sceptical Bastard
    Flame

    FFS

    Third-rate scientific minds peddling third-rate science. Still, they got themselves in the news (which, I suspect, was the aim).

    As to the slyly inserted "The biggest risk is to young children...", here we go again! It's the pernicious hand-wringing "Oh, won't anyone think of the children" mantra which the child protection industry exploit to impose their fanatic paranioa on virtually every area of life. Did anyone hear that nutter Jim Gamble on Radio 4 this morning? I rest my case.

    As to Paul Murphy (above): "The above is my opinion". Yes, and a particularly intolerant priggish self-righteous one so keep it to yourself.

  10. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Oh, I forgot...

    ...to mention that terrorists kill you big time! Can you imagine what a smoking terrorist can do?!?11?!

  11. p1nk_k1tten

    Why worry?

    You could get run over by a bus tomorrow!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why worry?

      Don't you think buses get a bad press?

  12. JC 2
    IT Angle

    The Date

    ... is it April 1st?

    I can't even imagine someone dumb enough to suggest replacing walls. Ultimately I suspect that their research is so risky/deadly we ought to ban that research altogether and lock them up for even thinking about it.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NURF THE WORLD!!!!!

    Lets just go for it, cover everything in soft foam to protect us, including ourselves, just in case we make physical contact with another human being...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ****ine

    Caffeine addicts at this point might want to stand up for the nicotine addicts, who knows what legally bought addictive substance they'll go for next...

  15. Just Thinking

    Biggest risk

    The biggest risk to children is that they will start smoking before they are mature enough to make an informed decision, then they get hooked and suffer ill health later in life. We should do something about that before we worry about 3rd hand smoke.

    Perhaps for the moment we have gone far enough with mitigating the effects of second hand smoking (I rarely encounter it now). We should be looking at the availability, the promotion and the media representation of smoking as if it were some normal human activity?

    ie don't allow so very many places to sell them, then it might be easier to police the age restrictions. Don't allow shops to put up huge, brightly lit banks of shiney cigarette boxes which are the first thing you see when you walk in. Don't show people smoking on early evening soaps (yes I know it is part of real life, but so what - wouldn't the real Phil Mitchell swear a bit more often than he does?)

    1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
      Flame

      The convenience stores...

      ...in the US used to have cardboard kiosks which displayed packs of ciggies out of sight of the clerks at convenient shoplifting elevation.

      The tobacco companies know they need to create addicts before they are old enough to understand the dangers. What's a couple hundred dollars compared to having a life long slave^H^H^H^Hloyal customer.

      New laws in most states now require that tobacco products be kept where only the clerk can reach them.

  16. Steen Hive
    Flame

    Got a light?

    These little fascist pricks are as good a justification for suicide by cigarette as anything.

  17. Richard Grimwood
    Big Brother

    E-fags solution not the problem

    I never smoked a lot, thank god, and now I find that a puff on an e-cig satisfies the odd craving usually after ordering the 3rd pint. This new research will no doubt be trumpeted by those trying to ban the e-cig which would be a shame. A mass conversion of smokers to the e-cig would lead to cleaner streets, clothes, hair, smokers and their loved ones lungs. Tax the nicotine cartridges then the tax man doesn't lose out , the NHS will eventually have less big 'C' patients and the council can spend less cleaning streets and more recycling the lithium ion batteries.

    Mines the one that doesn't stink any more.

  18. Diogenes
    Boffin

    Denormalise Denormalise

    The concept of 3rd hand smoke did not exist until January last year. The whole concept was cooked up by the National Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control, a special interest group working to legislate bans on tobacco (not surprisingly, heavily backed by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company of smoking cessation products) as part of its campaign to denormalise smoking.

    Denormalise. For those who don’t know what is meant by “denormalise,” it is exactly what fat people are experiencing in increasing intensity, as well as all those with physical characteristics, cultural differences or chronic diseases (actually primarily due to aging and genes) that can be condemned for not following some certain diet and lifestyle behavior. Denormalising is a process of “stigmatizing people in everyday discourse and media representations, in a variety of overwhelmingly negative ways” to make them outcasts and create cultural change as a means for a nation to control behavior.

    This technique of denormalising was described in detail by Simon Chapman, Ph.D., professor of public health at the University of Sydney, in the January 2008 issue of Tobacco Control, published by the British Medical Journal Publishing Group.

    And remember the dose makes the poison, ie drinking one glass water/hour good, drinking 12 litres of water per hour bad.

    Just because we can detect a few millipoofteenths of nicotine after a few years does not mean that those few millipoofteenths are dangerous

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Denormalise Denormalise

      Thanks for posting that. I hope lots of people read it.

      YES YOU!

      Read the above post, it's good.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Stop!

    I'm worried this research might be used to justify further restrictions on my smoking, therefore it's incorrect.

  20. Diogenes

    Won't somebody think(?) of the children

    I am sure that a variant of Godwin's Law should be postulated for "think of the children"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Dammit

      I hate being beaten to it. Maybe I should fire off a Hitler reference instead?

      - Bloody chain-smoking Nazi's!

      - Bloody scare-mongering Nazi's!

      - Bloody commentard Nazis will probably vote me down!

      There...I feel better now.

      Yes, yes, I'm going.

    2. Demosthenese

      Nazis

      You do know that Nazi Germany was the first government publicly to identify the link between cancer and smoking and the first to introduce smoking bans - for pregnant and young women.

      1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Nazis

        You win ten Godwins.

      2. some vaguely opinionated bloke

        James I

        (or James VI for those north of the border) got there first, but decided the duty raised was much better than the duty of care.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Can anyone point me towards the safe environmental levels of the following please:

    * Carbon Monoxide

    * Nitrous Oxide

    * Nitrogen

    * Iron

    * Oxygen

    * Water

    * Chlorophyll

    * Tin

    * Copper

    * Mercury

    * Cosmic Radiation

    * Infrared Radiation

    * Ultraviolet Radiation

    * Electromagnetic Radiation

    * Gravity

    * Velocity

    * Altitude

    * Temperature

    * Pressure

    * Viscosity

    * Germans

    * World Of Warcraft

    * The Daily Mail

    All have been shown to kill in sufficiently high concentrations, I'd just like to know where I stand...

    1. some vaguely opinionated bloke
      Joke

      Don't forget...

      Dihydrogen Monoxide...

    2. Allan George Dyer
      Boffin

      it's not velocity that kills...

      it's acceleration

  22. Alpha Tony
    Flame

    *facepalm*

    I think we should form a lobby group.. NSWACA or something like that.. (Non Smokers Who Aren’t Complete Asshats).

    I'm glad to see that there are others on here (who like) me either do not smoke or have given it up and yet:

    • Are able to stand next to a smoking person without making coughing/grumbling noises.

    • Are able to avoid commenting when someone comes back from a break smelling smoky (ironically the people that do point it out frequently have BO and/or halitosis).

    • Are able to have a discussion about smoking without sanctimoniously going on about how the smoker will die sooner/less pleasantly etc etc.

    Sadly as with most subjects the lunatic fringe is much more vocal than the majority. Just as PETA end up making all vegetarians look like loonies, the ‘ban this sick filth/won’t somebody think of the children’ lot end up making all us non/ex-smokers look like whinging, sanctimonious tossers.

    I suspect that many feel like me that the law has already done enough to protect us and any further legislation or interference would be a greater defeat for civil liberties than victory for public health.

    Not in my name chumps.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Ban potatoes, too

    Nicotine is also found in potatoes, tomatoes and green pepper - in higher doses than the residuals these Berkeley muppets examined.

    We obviously need to ban these too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Sources!

      Figures and sources please!

      1. some vaguely opinionated bloke

        auf wikipedia...

        so your salt intake may vary, but:

        "Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants (Solanaceae)"

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

        Several species are cultivated, including three globally important food crops:

        * Tomato, S. lycopersicum

        * Potato, S. tuberosum

        * Eggplant, S. melongena

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightshade

      2. slv138
        Boffin

        Sources?

        http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=22807

        "The tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum, belongs to the nightshade family, which also includes potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and red peppers. All contain nicotine."

        The actual amounts are much less than in tobacco, but I'd be willing to bet they are fairly close to the amounts collecting on surfaces per the 'study'.

  24. Simon Neill
    FAIL

    I'll be sure to remember this ...

    ... next time I get the urge to lick a smoker. Or their walls.

    Oh wait, I don't do that anyway because they stink and because its a little bit weird.

    1. Lionel Baden

      new job please

      i just had to explain why i burst out laughing in the middle of a meeting !!!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is something delicious

    About people criticizing the scientists for their loopy exclamations .... while bringing up racism and jackboots to support their paranoid fantasies.

    Am I alone in thinking arguments are weakened rather than strengthened by this sort of silliness ?

    Can we please have a "get a f'king grip" icon ?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fuck that

    I'm scared of 5th hand smoke.

    That's an object that's been near an object that's been near an object that's been near smoke that's been near a smoker.

    I can now conclude that I am 5th hand smoking 100% of the time which is an absolute bloody outrage and if I ever have kids I'm going to blame 5th hand smoking for every illness they ever get.

    And while I'm at it I don't ever want to see schools giving my kids that filthy disgusting dihydrogen monoxide at lunch time. All chemicals are bad. You don't need to be a scientologist to know that.

    1. Cameron Colley

      A much greater threat to the children is:

      Third-hand wanking! Seriously, in case anyone missed it a very scientific email stated that "In a year you will have shaken hands with 11 women who have masturbated and not washed their hands" -- I forget what the figure was for men but it can't be any better, surely?

      That means that, when touching your children, you are abusing them by third-hand masturbation!!!!!!!!!!! Stop this filth immediately!!!!!!!!

    2. ravenviz Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: f*ck that

      5th hand smoke is only manifest at quantum distances

  27. Richard 39

    I AM A SMOKER!!

    and I like it, I do it because it makes me happy and I don't care about so called 'health risks related to smoking', Yeah so, I might die of it but we're all going to die sometime and no-one can predict if Joe Healthy will die in any less pain than I, If anyone disagrees with me - do one! Yes I know this is an ignorant, self centered and narrow minded opinion but so are the findings in this piece of crap someone is trying to pass off as scientific study.

    I find Curries to be more dangerous than this mythical 'third hand smoke' crap.

    I defy anyone to go into the toilet after someone who has had a curry and not gag or run for fresh (second hand smoke filled) air, or for that matter I defy anyone to enjoy the ass burning sensation of a hot curry the next day.

    1. ravenviz Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: I AM A SMOKER!!

      There must be something wrong with me then because whenever I smoke I feel terrible

      1. Lionel Baden

        hmm

        i enjoy it

        maybe your doing it wrong :D

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