Quit Smoking For Real (the Non-Smoker factor) Part 1

To Quit Smoking for Real is one of the most sensible thing to do and also one of the very best of gifts you can present to yourself and the generality of mankind starting from your loved ones (spouse and/or child) and those around you -friends, peers, colleagues, associates, acquaintances and neighbours.

The campaign to Quit Smoking will carry more weight with its implementation and be widely received and supported (thus gaining more popularity) if the issue of Non-smokers exposed to great risk around cigarette (or tobacco related products) smokers having a smoke or puff is taken into consideration and addressed alongside those who are regular (mainstream) smokers.

Firstly, this group of non-smokers constitutes a latent crop of would-be “second-tier” smokers considering the level of exposure they must have suffered while around mainstream/ direct smokers. This is one major reason why the call to smokers to Quit Smoking for real is all the more loud.

Having suffered through constant subjection and first-hand exposure to cigarette smoke as a result of their closeness or nearness (interactively) with cigarette smokers, these ignorant and unsuspecting individuals constitute a “silent breed” of would-be smokers somewhere down the lane in the nearest future seeing they partake of the cigarette smoke (sidestream).

Secondly, health-wise- this group of individuals who have smokers as close friends, acquaintances, parents, peers, family relations or colleagues need and require medical care and attention. They get to suffer the more considering the fact that they become unduely exposed to a lifestyle that is not their own making nor their preference to say the least.

Apart from the immediate reactions to cigarette smoke experienced by non-smokers such as coughing, eye irritation, discomfort in the nose and throat, shortness of breath (gasping for breath), increased carbon II oxide (carbon monoxide) inhalation, reduced oxygen content in the blood and getting the heart to over exert itself, non-smokers go to be afflicted with different diseases and ailments such as asthma, bronchitis, cancer of the lungs, cancer of the heart, sore throats to mention a few.

Taking into consideration the manufacture and design of an average cigarette with the wrapper around it removed, the small stub held between the fingers while smoking which is commonly thrown away contains a filter. This filter is there on purpose.The filter serves to reduce the full concentration of thesmoke from the lighted cigarette (+plus nicotine and other additives) from getting inhaled by the smoker. The filter acts as a sieve for the smoke.

However, any bystander (a non-smoker) around a cigarette smoker while having a smoke is exposed to inhaling (indirectly) the unfiltered smoke (sidestream) and is thus unprotected at all. Such a person is exposed to great risk seeing it is smoke from the burning end of the cigarette (referred to as sidestream) that is inhaled. This smoke has no chance at all of getting filtered.

The risk to health is really great for the non-smoker under such circumstance. This is enough reason to intensify the more the campaign for smokers to quit smoking for real and the non-smoker to take steps to minimise undue exposure to cigarette (and other tobacco related products) smoke

...to be continued