World No Tobacco Day - May 31, 2007
Today has been declared 'World No Tobacco Day' by the World Health Oraganisation, a day that has been celebrated since 1988. With this year's theme being 'Smoke Free Environments'.
With the upcoming ban in England, Canada celebrating a year being smoke free and other nations around the world falling into line with the no smoking in public places policy, it is becoming harder for smokers to find places to smoke.
Smoke free environments is the basis of the smoking ban and the no smoking in public places policy. Obviously the health of non-smokers being subjected to second hand smoke is the issue here.
As a non-smoker myself I dislike returning home from a few beers in a pub or bar or public event, only to wake up to a room smelling of the smoke that is emmitting from my jacket, clothes and hair.
But that isn't the worst problem, by far. And although there has been a lot of publicity about it not many people, especially smokers, realise that second hand smoke is actually much, much more dangerous than the smoke you as a smoker inhale with every drag.
When you smoke, you are only inhaling a maximum of 40% of the nicotine in a cigarette - the rest goes up in smoke from the tip of your cigarette. If all the nicotine in a cigarette was injected into a human body we would die almost instantly.
And when you inhale the 4,700 odd chemicals in a cigarette are filtered by the filter - so you are only getting a small dose of the poisons - it is still dangerous and obviously leads to illness. But it is nowhere near as concentrated as the dose that is in the smoke emmitting from the tip of your cigarette.
A majority of the poisons and toxins in a cigarette are released from the smoke in the tip of the cigarette - that means that the non-smokers areound you are receiving a higher concentration of poisonous and toxic chemicals, with no choice in the matter, than you a smoker!
And the worst bit is that at least 80% of the poisons and toxins in second hand smoke cannot be seen - only about 20% of the chemicals in second had smoke can be seen in the form of the white smoke from the tip of the cigarette.
Most of the dangers of second hand smoke are subttle - so as non-smokers even though we may waft away or move away from a smoker we are still inhaling thousands of poisinous chemicals!
This is why so much emphais is being placed on smoke free environments. Next time you light up remember that you are inlaling much less chemicals than those around you - and they don't have a choice.
You may be thinking that you as a smoker don't have a choice either, because you are addicted. But once you learn a few truths about smoking and nicotine you will realise that you have a much bigger choice in the matter than you think.
With the upcoming ban in England, Canada celebrating a year being smoke free and other nations around the world falling into line with the no smoking in public places policy, it is becoming harder for smokers to find places to smoke.
Smoke free environments is the basis of the smoking ban and the no smoking in public places policy. Obviously the health of non-smokers being subjected to second hand smoke is the issue here.
As a non-smoker myself I dislike returning home from a few beers in a pub or bar or public event, only to wake up to a room smelling of the smoke that is emmitting from my jacket, clothes and hair.
But that isn't the worst problem, by far. And although there has been a lot of publicity about it not many people, especially smokers, realise that second hand smoke is actually much, much more dangerous than the smoke you as a smoker inhale with every drag.
When you smoke, you are only inhaling a maximum of 40% of the nicotine in a cigarette - the rest goes up in smoke from the tip of your cigarette. If all the nicotine in a cigarette was injected into a human body we would die almost instantly.
And when you inhale the 4,700 odd chemicals in a cigarette are filtered by the filter - so you are only getting a small dose of the poisons - it is still dangerous and obviously leads to illness. But it is nowhere near as concentrated as the dose that is in the smoke emmitting from the tip of your cigarette.
A majority of the poisons and toxins in a cigarette are released from the smoke in the tip of the cigarette - that means that the non-smokers areound you are receiving a higher concentration of poisonous and toxic chemicals, with no choice in the matter, than you a smoker!
And the worst bit is that at least 80% of the poisons and toxins in second hand smoke cannot be seen - only about 20% of the chemicals in second had smoke can be seen in the form of the white smoke from the tip of the cigarette.
Most of the dangers of second hand smoke are subttle - so as non-smokers even though we may waft away or move away from a smoker we are still inhaling thousands of poisinous chemicals!
This is why so much emphais is being placed on smoke free environments. Next time you light up remember that you are inlaling much less chemicals than those around you - and they don't have a choice.
You may be thinking that you as a smoker don't have a choice either, because you are addicted. But once you learn a few truths about smoking and nicotine you will realise that you have a much bigger choice in the matter than you think.
posted by Daniel Fargher at
9:15 AM
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