Third-Hand Smoke

We get it, America: you don’t like smokers. You have kicked them out of restaurants, bars, and all public places. You tell them to smoke their lousy cigarettes in the bitter cold so you can breathe better. You hiked the taxes on their cigarettes to pay your taxes. Smokers are lepers. We get it: smoking is bad for the smoker and for by-standers (second hand smoke). Eliminating smokers from restaurants spares the lungs of service workers who have to suffer from your disgusting second hand smoke (despite the fact most restaurant employees smoke).

First hand smoke: bad. Second hand smoke: bad. Third hand smoke: bad. What?! Third hand smoke? According to sciam.org, third hand smoke is “tobacco smoke contamination that remains after the cigarette has been extinguished.” So, if the person who lived in your home before you smoked…beware! If a smoker had a cigarette outside and then walked into your office, beware of the lingering toxins on her winter coat.

Admittedly, I am a smoker. I groaned when the smoking ban was passed in my state. I hate going outside in the blistering Iowa winter to have a cigarette between beers. Fact is: I still do it. The ban did not discourage my habit. I think I probably smoke more than I did before the ban (taking advantage of having a cigarette in my warm apartment knowing I will have to smoke outside if I am anywhere else).

Give smokers a break. Enough scaring people about cigarettes and smokers. Smokers (in Iowa) pay a hefty state tax on each pack of cigarettes. This tax goes toward health care for children and for the unemployed. So really, non-smokers, you kind of like us.