Third Hand Smoke

Wow.. It's been a long time since I last posted..

Anyway, I've read today's copy of Mind Your Body. This is the first time I came across the term: "Third Hand Smoke". I'm sure you'll be thinking similarly, "is there such a thing as third hand smoke?" Haha.

Ok let's check it out. First hand smoke is the smoke that the smoker breathes in. Second hand smoke is the smoke that the smoker exhales and another person breathes it. And third hand smoke is not so much the smoke, but rather the left behind chemicals that linger around even after the smoke has dissipated.

As we all know, cigarettes are made of thousands of chemicals. And lighting a cigarette makes these chemicals react, produce smoke and leave behind the end product. To put it as an analogy, imagine you have paper. You burn the paper and you'll get smoke and ash. But even after the ash is cleaned up and the smoke dissipate, you can still smell the smoke and find small traces of ash around. That is pretty much what third hand smoke is about. After the smoke is gone, you can still smell it and find traces of its harmful substances around.

Why is it dangerous? Would you like to hug a pillow with leftover cigarette chemicals? Or drink from a cup with small pieces of ash? Furthermore, you get to consume the same harmful chemicals as a smoker would by smoking, thus you'll have a chance of developing the same disease as them even if you don't smoke. Yeah life is unfair, at least in this sense..

STOP SMOKING!
=)