How “second-hand” is second-hand smoke?
By smoking outside, your roommate is eliminating your direct exposure to one source of second hand smoke, which is the by-product smoke coming directly from the burning cigarette, and he’s vastly reducing your exposure to his exhaled smoke stream, for the time he’s out smoking on the balcony. But most cigarette smokers will continue to exhale trace amounts of smoke particles for the next 2 to 4 breaths after their last inhaled “drag.” So, if he’s ducking right back inside from the balcony, he could be, unwittingly, bringing back in several lungfuls of diluted smoke from each cigarette. If he’d stay out an extra minute or two, to clear his lungs, you might notice the difference, if he’s typically going out for 8 or 10 smokes an evening. 4 residual lungfuls of diluted smoke times 10 cigarettes per evening = 40 lungfuls of diluted second hand smoke. Given that the tidal volume of adult lungs averages about 1/2 a liter, this is 20 lit
who is showing you a great deal of courtesy by not smoking inside what is also his home Not smoking in the home you share with a nonsmoker isn’t courtesy, it’s minimum decency. However, the idea that residual smoke on the smoker’s clothes or in their lungs could increase the asker’s cancer risk is flat out ridiculous. I’d like to see a shred of evidence that paulsc’s statements aren’t made-up nonsense. I’ll assume she isn’t spending a lot of time nuzzling her roommate’s shoulder so I’ll discount the SIDS issue. Asker, if you’re worrying about this you’re either a hypochondriac or you’re looking for a more scientific reason to justify the your perfectly reasonable aversion to the basic fact of life that smokers stink. You can smell incredibly tiny concentrations of chemicals. If you find it too gross you’ll have to seek new living conditions. Otherwise, yes, you are absolutely being paranoid.
But any ex-smoker (who isn’t blind) Yes, I am a sighted ex-smoker as well. I’m not questioning that there is some residual smoke exhaled after the last inhale, but that it could be of any significance to the question at hand, and particularly that google-derived, back-of-the-envelope calculations about the “tidal volumes” of the lungs have any meaning. Only the absolute amount of smoke particles the roommate exhales inside matters, and discussions of lung capacity are irrelevant to that unknown quantity, but barring anything like actual data I’ll stick with my belief that it is, from the cancer risk perspective of the tenant, as marginal and negligible as trace particles clinging to the skin, clothes and hair. She, I assume, knew he smoked when she moved in And I would assume they negotiated the issue when they agreed to live together, none of which changes the fact that electing not to subject an individual to a serious health risk merely because one has a lamentable addiction does no
paulsc writes “Because, you know, it’s actual second hand smoke coming out of her roommate’s nostrils, if he’s ducking right back inside, as many smokers do.” Bzzt. Wrong. Per the CDC, true second hand smoke is “a complex mixture of gases and particles that includes smoke from the burning cigarette, cigar, or pipe tip (sidestream smoke) and exhaled mainstream smoke.” (Emphasis added.) The smoke that lingers in the lungs has already been passed through the filter of the cigarette and been further filtered by the lungs (woohoo!). Unless he rolls back into the place with a lit cigarette in hand, this does not meet the definition of second hand smoke. It’s a somewhat pedantic distinction, I know, but we’re already being painfully pedantic here so I figure why not.
