Secondhand Smoking Harms School Performance

I grew up in a house filled with smoke. Both of my parents smoked. They smoked everywhere - in the house, in the car, in restaurants - you name it. If my parents had that persistent, nagging itch for for some nicotine satisfaction, they lit up, regardless of where they were or who was around. I always wondered whether those plumes of smoke might impact my health. I later learned that second-hand smoke was linked in children to increased risk of asthma, as well as bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory infections. My biological mother never smoked with me in the womb but my step-mom smoked while pregnant. Smoking while pregnant results in higher risk of the child having childhood behavior problems and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. I knew all of that. What I was amazed to learn today is that childhood second hand smoking exposure results in impaired performance in school. Check out the article in the Journal of Pediatrics.

The study was done in Hong Kong among 23,000 11- to 20-year-old non-smoking students. The study was split between youngsters who lived with at least one smoker and those who did not. The students rated their school performance. The level of rating one's school performance as "poor" compared to classmates varied with exposure to second-hand smoke. 23% of students who were exposed to smoking at home at least five days a week rated their performance as poor. That rate was 20% for students who had less exposure. The rate was only 17% for students who lived in non-smoking households. The researchers accounted for certain factors like parents’ education levels and the type of housing the students lived in.

The study was not perfect. The researchers depended on the student's self-assessment of academic performance and exposure to smoke in the home. Future studies can do a better job of measuring school performance by, for example, looking at official school records. They can also make objective measurements of exposure to smoke by, for example, testing urine. The study was a positive step forward in learning about the effects of second hand smoke on youngsters. A lot more work needs to be done.

I did not have trouble in school growing up but my siblings did. A number of things conspired to harm their ability to excel in school. It is troubling to learn that my parents' smoking might have been one additional factor. Parents really should read this study. It ought to be a criminal act for a parent or anyone else for that matter to smoke around a child. Let's see what the future brings.

Stay in Touch!

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

Happy Pride!

This weekend is Pride! What will you do?

My Pride weekend will be jam packed. I can't wait to participate in the trans march on Friday. I'm really looking forward to seeing "Dyke Delights" on Saturday as part of the Frameline film festival. Afterwards I am going to take to the streets in the Mission and the Castro as I join other women in the Dyke March. My Saturday will be capped off with a good time at Pink Saturday on Castro Street. Sunday of course will be the Pride parade. My girlfriend Carmel and I still need a battle plan for where we will view the Parade. This year will be the first in several years that I am not volunteering. I get to see the floats! My Pride experience will end with a romp through the Pride booths.

I am hoping for a good time. One thing I worry about is being surrounded by smokers. Market Street will be jam packed with people on the sidewalks. Imagine being pressed on all sides by people trying to get a peak at the hotties on the float coming by. You can't move anywhere. All of a sudden you are overcome by the smell of smoke. Someone in back of you is smoking and the breeze is carrying over to you. You have no choice but to endure the stench and the dangerous fumes. It is not an inconsequential thing to be exposed to secondhand smoke. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoking takes 4,000 lives in California from lung cancer and heart disease alone. Unbelievable!

Events like Pride bring out our community in force. Unfortunately it brings out our addictions in force too. There will be a lot of smoking on the streets. The statistics are really amazing. In California, men in the LGBT community smoke about 50% more than all men. Women in our community smoke nearly three times as much as all women. Transgender members of our community smoke twice as much as all Californians. And most alarming of all - LGBT young adults 18-24 years old smoke over two and a half times as much as all young adults (43.7% vs. 16.6%). There will be a lot of people lighting up!

I hope that through the advocacy of groups like Butt Out that we can get the message to smokers that there is a different way to live. We also need to decrease the exposure of innocent bystanders to secondhand smoke. I'd like to go to a Pride celebration that is filled with nothing but blue skies, fresh air and half naked men and women. Here's to hoping.

Have a fantastic Pride!

Stay in Touch!

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.

Schwarzenegger Lacks Leadership on Smoking Ban

We can all feel good about the second-hand smoking ban in San Francisco. The ban will help everyone enjoy smokefree movie lines and restaurant patios, among other things. LGBT people benefit and LGBT smokers might even be motivated to give up the habit. We cannot become complacent in our victory, however. Statewide, our grand old governor, the Arnold, has vetoed a bill that would ban smoking in our state parks and beaches. Our collective wilds are still at the mercy of smokers. Shame, shame, governor!

Has this ever happened to you? It is a sunny day. You are at the beach. The breeze is coursing through your hair as you walk hand in hand with your loved one. You admire the ocean waves and contemplate your small but glorious place in the world. You imagine yourself as one grain of sand in the universe and look down to admire the tan waves of surf. Then you see it. A collection of cigarette butts with a beer bottle on the ground. These little nasties are ground into the sand, with their white filters poking out of the top. Your mood is immediately shot.

How can we enjoy our parks and oceans when people litter these areas with cigarrette butts? This garbage tarnishes the serenity of the scenes. They are pollution too and harm the fragile ecosystems that our fabulous state supports. Equally vexatious is the second-hand smoking that people are exposed to when they congregate together on camp grounds and other shared spots on the wilds. Smoking is a menace to our state parks and beaches.

Our cigar smoking governor failed us all. He also went against the recommendations of experts on the issue, the California Ocean Protection Council. Schwarzenegger said that the smoking ban was too intrusive and that state parks and beaches individually could ban smoking. He also said that smoking could be discouraged with added penalties and fines.

These arguments are unavailing. If he thinks that smoking bans are permissible on an individual basis, he has no good reason to promote smoking on a statewide basis. Additionally, penalties and fines can be used with a smoking ban to discourage the noxious practice. Not only does Schwarzenegger's arguments fall flat, they fail against the practice of countless governments. Hundreds of communities nationwide have enacted smoking bans at municipal parks and beaches. Maine is the only state to ban smoking at its state beaches.

I plan to visit Muir Woods with my sweetie this weekend. I want to enjoy the elements without seeing cigarrette butts dotting the grounds. This is less likely with Schwarzenegger's veto. Take one of your cigars and put it up in your wild areas, Arnold!

Stay in Touch

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.

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.