All I ever hear from anti-smoking people is that exposure to secondhand smoke makes your chances of contracting lung disease however many times greater. I have never seen numbers reflecting simply, if you are a nonsmoker without exposure to second hand smoke your odds are ___% and exposure to secondhand smoke makes them ___%. I went through a Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention questionnaire last year three times. I filled it out once as the smoker I am, once as a nonsmoker exposed to second hand smoke, and the third time as a nonsmoker not exposed. Every other answer I gave was the same on all three attempts. It was no surprise that the difference between the first two was quite significant. Nor did it surprise me, although it may you, that the difference between the second and third was insignificant. So, that, in my mind, makes the health threat seem more comparable to allergies like shellfish and peanuts. Quite severe, but uncommon. Are we going to ban peanuts? How about we follow NYC in banning trans-fats? The smell is unpleasant? It's just as unpleasant, to me, to sit next to a woman with too much perfume or a man with too much cologne. Instead of a ban on smoking, how about a requirement that restaurants, etc. have separation in the ventilation, as well as physical barriers, between smoking and nonsmoking areas?
the questionnaire: http://www.yourdiseaserisk.harvard.edu/hccpquiz.pl?lang=english&func=home&quiz=lung UPDATE: that link no longer works. The questionaire seems to have moved to : http://www.yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu/hccpquiz.pl?lang=english&func=home&quiz=lung It has been changed slightly. The new version asks about living with a smoker instead of asking about general exposer to second-hand smoke. Is it just me or is that telling all by itself? Anyway, I went throught he new one and the results are after the Harvard results.
Here are the results from the Harvard version
Smoker:	non-smoker w/second hand:	non-smoker w/out second hand:
Here are the results of the WUSTL version.
My results	Me without smoking but living with a smoker.	Me without smoking and not living with one.