As if secondhand smoke were not bad enough...

Do you know how tobacco smoke gets everywhere? In a person's hair, on their clothes, on furniture and the walls? I have to totally fumigate my belongings after visiting my sister's house. Lingering tobacco smoke marks a place like a scarlet letter.

It now looks like the lingering smoke is dangerous in addition to being stinky. Researchers have recently found that smoke that settles on surfaces interacts with those surfaces to create cancer causing chemicals that don’t even exist in tobacco smoke alone! Check out an article discussing the findings here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aTVcuy71TmGE.

The findings are a double whammy for smokers and nonsmokers alike. Not only does the smoker inhale dangerous chemicals directly from the cigarette, but now the smoker is inhaling dangerous chemicals generated by the smoke that sticks to the furniture. Nonsmokers have to deal with this danger too in addition to dealing with the hazards of inhaling smokers' noxious fumes.

Researchers don't know how "thirdhand" smoke, as they are calling it, factors into the global death and illness rate suffered by people suffering from tobacco related illnesses, but I'm sure more work will be done in this area to pin down the impact of this phenomenon. I personally cringe at the thought of what my siblings and I were exposed to growing up. Both of my parents smoked heavily in the house and in the car. Smoke was everywhere. If only my parents had a better appreciation of the risks involved in their smoking. Their habit wasn't just about them individually. My brother has two little girls now. He is a smoker but doesn't smoke in the house. The is better than nothing, but he should know about the study and how having smoke on himself poses a risk alone. How scary!

Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.