[NBC]

I remember reading an article about the problematic nature of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ets) in a medical/science journal a few years ago - I think it may have been the Lancet but I could be wrong. The article stated that the essence of the dangers of ETS is the temperature gradient between the burning tip (end) of the tobacco product and the area closer to the filter where the smoke is drawn from. This difference in temperature, which was something in the neighborhood of 5x higher at the tip, creates a different set of variables in terms of ETS.

Chemicals will react differently when placed under varying levels of environmental pressures such as heat. This is the crux of the problem. While exhaled smoke is highly unpleasant and can be lachrymatory in effect, it's toxic properties are far less than the smoke that emanates from the burning tip of the cigarette or cigar. If cigarettes were, as one poster mentioned, just tobacco leaves, then this would not be a significant as an issue as society is faced with. However, this is not the case and ETS will continue to present a unique and highly-divisive major health concern for years to come.

In terms of an analogy: Old barbed-wire fence posts were coated in coal-tar creosote, a substance which is a known human carcinogen. Now the fence posts framing many millions of acres of good prairie land are harmless to humans and animals alike. I just wouldn't want to sit around a campfire that is using them for firewood.