Feldman (FGCU): Third Degree Smoking

Yes, it now has a name, third degree smoking. 

We all know first degree smokers are the ones who actually smoke, kill their lungs, are always coughing, and can barely breath by the time they’re in their 70’s. Also, they can get emphysema,  heart disease, lung disease, and so on.  It can shorten your life by at least 10 years and most of the time even more. And it obviously costs thousands and thousands of dollars.  Even when taxes go up, they’re still willing to pay to get their nicotine fix.

 Secondhand smoke is also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or passive smoke. It is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco: sidestream smoke (smoke that comes from the end of a lighted cigarette, pipe, or cigar) and mainstream smoke (smoke that is exhaled by a smoker).

When non-smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke it is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. Non-smokers who breathe in secondhand smoke take in nicotine and other toxic chemicals just like smokers do. The more secondhand smoke you are exposed to, the higher the level of these harmful chemicals in your body.

The risks present to those around smokers are not just limited to second hand smoke (passive smoking) but also a less obvious “third hand” smoke residue.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting that lingers long after second-hand smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.

It’s hard to believe that smoking has come to this.  It has a much larger effect on the people and spaces around you than one would think, rather than just being used to simply calm down and relax or to fix to addiction.  I sincerely hope that smoking will eventually come to an end.  I believe it will allow our society and population to live longer and healthier lives and fulfill our dreams to a more realistic time span of achievement.

Works Cited

American Cancer Society

Lampard, John. Dissasociated.com; notedpad to point zero. 7 January 2009. Web. 1 March 2010

This entry was posted on 2. March 2010 at 05:44 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.