Smoking in vehicles brings higher nicotine exposure
ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH
The researchers said their findings pointed to a need for a campaign to discourage smoking in cars.
Sharing a ride with a smoker will give you a much heftier dose of nicotine than having a meal in a restaurant that allows smoking or hanging out at a smoky bar, according to new research.
Even opening the window or switching on the air-conditioner when a smoker lights up leaves significant amounts of nicotine in the air, according to the study by four researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
In fact smokers who put their windows down all the way averaged more nicotine in the air, perhaps because they tended to be heavier smokers or perhaps because the air whipping around inside their cars distributed smoke and nicotine more widely, said Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, one of the researchers and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins' School of Public Health.
"In any case it is clear that ventilation is insufficient to eliminate tobacco smoke," she said.
Nicotine, which is toxic, is the addictive substance in tobacco.
The Hopkins team believes its research, using air samplers placed in 22 drivers' cars last summer, is the first to measure nicotine concentrations in actual driving conditions rather than in laboratory simulations. Their results were published in the medical journal Tobacco Control.
The Hopkins team found nicotine in the air averaged 8.3 micrograms per cubic meter when a driver smoked one to three cigarettes during a commute, and 12.5 micrograms per cubic meter when drivers smoked four or more cigarettes. The highest concentration, 128 micrograms, was recorded in a small car in which the driver smoked eight cigarettes while keeping the air-conditioner running.
A benchmark 2005 European survey of nicotine, cited by the Hopkins study, in the air of restaurants that allow smoking reported median levels of 9.3 micrograms in Paris; 7.8 in Barcelona; 7.1 in Orebro, Sweden; and 4.7 in Athens. Only Vienna, at 17 micrograms, reported a higher average than the average for a driver smoking four or more cigarettes. Nicotine in the air of smokers' cars was higher than the averages recorded in a 31-nation survey of 1,284 smokers' homes, according to a 2008 report also cited in the Hopkins study.
The eight-cigarette driver's car had more nicotine in the air than 28 of the 40 European discos and bars that the 2005 the European survey examined.
Each cigarette smoked roughly doubled the amount of nicotine in the air in the cars, the study found.
The researchers said their findings pointed to a need for a campaign to discourage smoking in cars, noting that nicotine from secondhand smoke can affect asthmatic children's breathing, while studies have shown it can affect the cardiovascular system in ways similar to actual smoking.
A handful of states, including Arkansas, California and Louisiana, ban smoking in cars when children are passengers. So does Puerto Rico. Beginning next month, Avis Budget Group Inc. will ban smoking in all of its rental cars, citing customers' complaints about tobacco odors and residues.
The Hopkins researchers said their findings were generally in line with recent studies suggesting that smoking two cigarettes a day inside a car leaves the air with about 20 percent more particulate matter than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ceiling for what it considers unpolluted air.
They said the drivers they studied all agreed that smoking posed a health risk to passengers, and that 15 percent would only smoke when they had no passengers in their cars.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or dress @timesdispatch.com.
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THE AIR ACCORDING TO OSHA
Though repetition has little to do with “the truth,“ we’re repeatedly told that there’s “no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.“
OSHA begs to differ.
OSHA has established PELs (Permissible Exposure Levels) for all the measurable chemicals, including the 40 alleged carcinogens, in secondhand smoke. PELs are levels of exposure for an 8-hour workday from which, according to OSHA, no harm will result.
Of course the idea of “thousands of chemicals” can itself sound spooky. Perhaps it would help to note that coffee contains over 1000 chemicals, 19 of which are known to be rat carcinogens.
-“Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities” Gold Et Al., Science, 258: 261-65 (1992)
There. Feel better?
As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that:
“Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.“
-Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
Indeed it would.
Independent health researchers have done the chemistry and the math to prove how very very rare that would be.
As you’re about to see in a moment.
In 1999, comments were solicited by the government from an independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke.
Using EPA figures on the emissions per cigarette of everything measurable in secondhand smoke, they compared them to OSHA’s PELs.
The following excerpt and chart are directly from their report and their Washington testimony:
CALCULATING THE NON-EXISTENT RISKS OF ETS
“We have taken the substances for which measurements have actually been obtained—very few, of course, because it’s difficult to even find these chemicals in diffuse and diluted ETS.
“We posit a sealed, unventilated enclosure that is 20 feet square with a 9 foot ceiling clearance.
“Taking the figures for ETS yields per cigarette directly from the EPA, we calculated the number of cigarettes that would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold for each of these substances. The results are actually quite amusing. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a situation where these threshold limits could be realized.
“Our chart (Table 1) illustrates each of these substances, but let me report some notable examples.
“For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes would be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold.
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes would be required.
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
“At the lower end of the scale—in the case of Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up simultaneously in our little room to reach the threshold at which they might begin to pose a danger.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes are required. Perhaps we could post a notice limiting this 20-foot square room to 300 rather tightly-packed people smoking no more than 62 packs per hour?
“Of course the moment we introduce real world factors to the room—a door, an open window or two, or a healthy level of mechanical air exchange (remember, the room we’ve been talking about is sealed) achieving these levels becomes even more implausible.
“It becomes increasingly clear to us that ETS is a political, rather than scientific, scapegoat.“
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke “health hazard” claims are greatly exaggerated
The BMJ published report can be found here:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
And concludes:
The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.
I’d like to know who actually used the brainpower to decide that this study needed to be done. My eight-year-old could figure out that when you smoke in a car with the windows rolled up, the smoke goes nowhere except in the car. Did we really need thousands of dollars spent on a Johns Hopkins study to tell us this?
I hope the people in power at state govt read this because i’m going to sue you and with the pile of pics i have i will win.You see i am a state employee that works out of a state vehicle my coworker is a chain smoker and smokes in the vehicle all day everyday. there is a lot of good ole boy back slappin at my office so we were told not to get caught. I would like to go to HR but i really need my job and like i said good ole boy back slappin and i loose my job and why i just wanted to breath clean air at work but that wont happen. The Gov should get his house in order before pointing at anyone else!
Here at the University of Duh, we have studies in such things as:
Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer induced headaches.
Water induced drowning.
Light reduction due to night.
Loss of body heat due to lack of clothing.
and most important…
Guv’mint funding for studies that offend the general public.
Even as a non-smoking, can’t stand the smell of it, democrat!... I think banning smoking in your own car absolutely ridiculous BS. However… just a note please keep your BUTTS in the car and stop flicking them out the window, especially if there is a motorcycle around you. That she-ott hurts when you get by one and it looks horrible on the sides of our roads.
Thanks… I’ll get off my soap box now.
Not to worry, soon “King Kaine” and the federal “gubmint” will outlaw smoking in cars. They will say it bothers the non smokers driving down the highway.
What gets me is when you see kids in the car with the “adults” puffing away on a cig and the windows barely cracked. Personally I think that should be considered child endangerment. If you are in your car, yes you should be able to smoke. IF you are in a rental, it should be off limits to be considerate to the next renter. But if there is a kid in the car it should be off limits period.
Just a thought from a non smoker.
...and the sad thing is that there have apparently already been studies on this.
The Hopkins researchers said their findings were generally in line with recent studies suggesting that smoking two cigarettes a day inside a car leaves the air with about 20 percent more particulate matter than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ceiling for what it considers unpolluted air.
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