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Anti-smoking efforts are starting to get silly. I'm not a smoker; I avoid second-hand smoke when I can, mostly because it's obviously offensive. It stinks. The unpleasant smell reminds me that I once smoked; and really, it doesn't take a chemistry degree to realize that those second-hand molecules hanging in the air and wafting about a bar or restaurant are foul things discarded by seedy people who could care less who they afflict while enjoying their self-destructive habit. And yes, I'll choose a hotel room that's designated non-smoking, because the odor does penetrate the drapes and the carpet and those molecules do cling to the walls and the glass and discolor the paint. Oh, and yes, I can definitely tell when a smoker is about, because my nose knows. But I didn't think that those trace molecules could be quantified as a hazard.

The New York Times ran an article decrying 'third-hand smoke' as a newly identified hazard that threatens 'children's health'. Yes, those remnant molecules sticking to the carpets and painted walls are now deemed hazardous to kids and adults who might touch and absorb them long after the cigarette is extinguished. The article has a ring of alarmism I find nearly as obnoxious as second-hand smoke. Just how much hazard is present, and compared to the myriad of hazards we already know about and encounter is our daily lives, just where would this newly-discovered hazard actually rank?

The NYT, citing a study published in the journal Pediatrics, didn't bother to discover those details. Instead, they crafted a hit piece on smoking, playing to the fears that 'the children' might be at risk.

I'd like to know what level of risk is present, please. Before we start handing out masks and pressure-washing the elevators.

Oh, and this...

"Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”

There's plenty of obnoxious smells we cross in our daily lives. Without getting too specific, we don't normally run away every time we encounter a bad odor. Boston, New York; I'll bet strolling the streets in those or any other overpopulation center is an exercise in aroma avoidance.

What is the NYT advocating? Of course, they are inherently anti-tobacco, and would lurvs some pro-government intervention, and would probably like nothing more than to shut down the tobacco industry entirely. Barring that, banning smoking in the home 'for the children's sake' is obviously the next step...

The belief that third-hand smoke was harmful greatly increased the likelihood the respondent also would enforce a strict smoking ban at home, Dr. Winickoff said.

“That tells us we’re onto an important new health message here,” he said. “What we heard in focus group after focus group was, ‘I turn on the fan and the smoke disappears.’ It made us realize how many people think about second-hand smoke — they’re telling us they know it’s bad but they’ve figured out a way to do it.”

...

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the phrase third-hand smoke is a brand-new term that has implications for behavior. [emboldenings mine]

Loving the smell of 'behavior implications', aren't you? Government intervention follows closely, I'll warrant. Banning smoking in homes where children are present; banning smoking in cars that might transport children; and why not ban smoking during working hours, even outside, because a smoker drags those nassty 'third-hand smoke' molecules back into the office where they might harm an innocent party?

Sheesh. I'll take my chances with 'third-hand smoke'. The rights of smokers are curtailed enough. As more people realize that their habit is annoying and harmful to other people, they'll feel more pressure to quit. But this NYT hit piece is overkill, part of an anti-smoking campaign that's little more than a setup that practically begs for more incremental government intervention. That incremental government eroding of rights is to me is more harmful than a few remnant molecules.