Can an air quality standard resolve secondary smoke issues?

Earlier this year we discovered an air quality standard that had been published by the European Commission in 2007. Shortly after we used it in this story it disappeared from its website, but we had saved it, and subsequently published it on the Freedom2Choose website.

This link again. A discussion has developed in the comments between supporters and opponents of air-cleaning equipment in pubs. Much of it has to do with the very idea that technology could render a smoking ban quite unnecessary: nothing, say opponents, beats elimination of a contamination source.

The notions that 'there is no safe level of secondary smoke' and 'ventilation doesn't work' run throughout anti-smoking campaigns. Both are nonsensical and they conspire to ensure that eliminating tobacco smoke remains the recommended option.

As far as I can see  technology has moved a long way since noisy and ancient fans offered the best ventilation available to pubs. The situation is different now, as companies have to deal with many air quality problems with a degree of urgency. Air quality in aviation is a case in point. The equipment is sophisticated and designed to remove contaminants for a sustained period (throughout long flights for example). But it already has other uses, and possible further applications are many.

The equipment under discussion is described in the video:



Taking the video entirely at face value (which states that tests are going well and orders are being placed for the system), it would seem that all contaminants within a given air space can be removed. I would expect that systems can be purpose-built for specific buildings (businesses, operating theatres, workshops) according to their size and the kind of activity going on, and that a range of off-the-shelf models will be available to suit a range of needs. I see no reason why it should not work to clear pubs of smoke.

I've supported an air quality standard for as long as I have been aware there was such a thing. It has always made sense to me that people should not be exposed to bad air when they are working – especially when doing hard physical work, when more of it would be inhaled. I simply haven't accepted that smoke does pose a significant risk – the dose makes the poison, and toxins in smoke are extremely weak. But in principle there should be a standard for air, just as there are basic safety standards of other kinds.

So much for the standard. As for the equipment, I really can't see how it is possible to conclude that ventilation engineers will look at the issue of secondary smoke extraction, shake their heads and say, 'No can do'. Can they?

Safe levels of secondary smoke possible?

As a non-scientist I'm not particularly keen on reading technical pieces about chemistry or air quality but I was intrigued by this piece on an experiment in Staffordshire, where an environmental officer said that a study 'found a child [in a car] inhales three times the amount of smoke that would be considered safe to inhale over the course of a day'?: previously discussed here.


It is part of the faith of anti-smoking authorities the world over that there is no safe level of secondary smoke. Google the phrase and read about it being quoted everywhere in the world. But inevitably the protest arose that 'no safe level' was scientifically nonsensical and represents only a value judgement on the act of smoking itself.  


A measurable level of toxicity in the air can be dealt with. Air cleaning systems improve all the time: they are more sophisticated than creaking fans in the ceiling. But the anti-smokers have never wanted the problem to be dealt with rationally. Even though smoke is not as hazardous as other substances in the working environment it is not an industrial by-product, so can be excluded by means of prohibition and really because there is no safe level, only a ban will eradicate exposure. Any other toxin can be dealt with by calm efficiency, but ETS (secondary smoke) has magic qualities that allow it to evade effective control.


This piece provides an account of an OSHA measure of secondary smoke achieved by measuring nicotine only, rather than compounding it with measurements of formaldehyde and benzene, which form part of background pollution. Unfortunately the piece, though entitled 'OSHA sets safe level of second hand smoke', fails to link to OSHA itself, which is rather odd.  Yes, it's from a pipe smoking web site but I found it informative.


This famous table ('The Dose Makes The Poison') gives a breakdown of toxins found in smoke, and their toxicity.


Surely it is essential to uphold the notion that all risks are measurable, and that only by establishing a safe level of any risk is it possible to deal with it. 'No safe level' implies that something kills on impact. Deadly substances have to be contained and isolated if contact with them presents a clear danger to human life. Secondary smoke has formed the backdrop of life in the licensed trade and informal social life and many workplaces for generations and clearly doesn't fall into this category, since our elderly people are living longer than ever. 


Anyone who wants people to fear the impact of secondary smoke, when there are so many airborne chemicals resulting from the industrial-scale incineration of minerals, is guilty of shameless scaremongering, and enormous social and economic damage.