[zeveb]

> Second hand smoking is a thing

Second-hand smoking is no more a thing than pink fairies are a thing. It's junk science used to justify a moral panic — at its root, the same impulse behind drug laws, anti-homosexual laws and racist laws.

[loco5niner]

Both the American Cancer Society and the Center for Disease Control disagree:

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco...

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/tobacco-and-canc...

[perl4ever]

I read the first link, and I don't like the presentation for two reasons - they define secondhand smoke as tobacco smoke, so by definition (e.g.) living in a house with a fireplace that's used all the time doesn't count. And grouping living with a smoker with all other incidental exposure does not seem legitimate to me. It's like saying because workers in a popcorn factory sometimes get a horrible lung disease from artificial butter, you are at significant risk because you eat it a few times a year.

So I'm not saying there's anything out and out false there, but it is what I think of as (more or less) "fake news". My conclusion is that yes, it is bad for parents to be smokers, but if we're not going to take all children away from them for being unfit, then how much less should we go on a holy war against smokers in general for their impact on strangers?

I'm old enough that I remember when nonsmoking sections in restaurants were right next to the smoking sections. It's nice to have it banned indoors, but that's the point at which we've gone far enough, and people who claimed there was a slippery slope turned out to be prophetic.

[loco5niner]

It seems logical to separate "wood-burning" smoke from tobacco smoke for research and policy purposes.

Your popcorn factory example doesn't apply here at all. They are not saying "smokers have health problems, therefore second-hand smokers have problems". They are directly tying second hand smoke to the health problems.

If you think this is "fake news", please refer to the reference section.