[NA] 3rd hand smoke?

[Pi1otguy]

Article
Study

The study, which was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that nicotine constitutes a major part of thirdhand smoke and often reacts with indoor air and fabrics to form pollutants that pose dangers to people's health.
The risk for young children, who are more likely to be crawling on carpets, is especially concerning, the study found. But people napping on tainted sofas or eating food that may have been previously exposed to the smoke are also at increased risk.

Most smokers I know try to be kind WRT 2nd hand smoke. How are they supposed to avoid causing 3rd hand smoke?
Does this means everything around a smoker is toxic?

 

[Jim Logajan]

The continued assault on it is legal as well.

If it involves public health, it means a government agency will get involved. The FDA in particular does not seem to be too shy about asserting that U.S. citizens do not have a right to determine what they ingest - even when it doesn't affect anyone else. Nevermind 2nd or 3rd hand whatever. The FDA filed this particular (and peculiar) claim in a recent legal brief:

"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/litigation-FDA-status.htm

I find it peculiar since "right to obtain" is somewhat redundant, so maybe they were trying to impart some other meaning (leave "to obtain" out and see if their sentence still seems to say the same thing.) A "right", as I understand it, refers merely to a potential unhindered by other humans - the actualization may be blocked by other physical reality. Maybe they meant to argue something else like "you don't, for example, have a fundamental right to obtain Martian grown apples, because they don't exist yet, so therefore you don't really have a fundamental right to food choices; ergo we can regulate this food over here such that you can't obtain it."

That doesn't fit my definition of "right" but they may have had something else in mind. I get the distinct impression they believe they own my ***.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Really. First-hand smoke kills. We know it. Second-hand smoke maims. We know it. So, now someone studied third-hand smoke and found it is also harmful and we get objections to the STUDY. Fine. Put your head back in the sand. If you yell about the study enough maybe smoke will be good for your lungs.

Here's the problem I always have: I tend to assume people have some underlying philosophy or set of rules that they apply to these issues and I have to reverse engineer them from whatever specific thing is under discussion, since they rarely bother to state them in equation or symbolic form, showing the variables. I know I don't do that for others either, though.

So when I try to reverse-engineer the underlying philosophy, I get what I think is the working equation and substitute different values to see how universal that person's life philosophy might be and hence show any flaws in intent. In this case I seem to get this:

"Airplanes can crash and kill the people on board. Studies have now shown that airplane crashes kill innocent third parties on the ground. If you yell about this fact enough maybe airplane flying will be good for people."

If one seeks to deny a freedom to someone else's action simply because it creates a statistically higher danger of causing harm to a third party, one should realize the consequences to freedoms they hold dear that fall under the same rule.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Are there not safety requirements for aircraft?

What are the corresponding safety requirements for tobacco products?

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

These don't appear to be enough for some people. As I said, if people don't tell me what their underlying philosophy is I have to reverse engineer what it might be. I like freedom as much as humanly possible. I have never agreed with the concept that an act should be illegal if there is some probability it may cause harm. So right off the bat I'm already out of step with a large portion of the world!