Keep driving ’til you hit the 100% smoke-free promised land, advises a new study published in the BMJ journal Tobacco Control. Otherwise, you’re exposing your family to nicotine and other tobacco carcinogens. Researchers put participants up for a night in one of 40 San Diego hotels with or without smoking bans. They stayed either in a smoking, non-smoking, or 100% smoke-free hotel rooms, and researchers analyzed the rooms’ surfaces and air for tobacco pollutants. Through urine samples and finger wipes, scientists were able to identify tobacco-specific carcinogens and pollutants, like nicotine and 3EP (a flame retardant). Those who stayed in non-smoking rooms had higher levels of tobacco pollutants than those who stayed in smoke-free hotels. “Nonsmokers are not protected from tobacco smoke exposure in non-smoking hotel rooms,” says Georg Matt, PhD, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and lead author of the study. “When nonsmoking guests leave the hotel in the morning, they have nicotine on their hands.” Guests who stayed in non-smoking rooms in hotels that allowed smoking had higher levels of nicotine on their fingers and higher urine levels of cotinine, a biomarker for tobacco smoke, than those who stayed in hotels with complete smoking bans. In fact, the air in nonsmoking rooms had seven times more 3EP than the air of complete-ban rooms. (Don’t even think about staying in a smoking room: air nicotine levels there were 22 times higher than in a non-smoking room.) But don’t you extinguish all risk when you stamp out your cigarette? Unfortunately, carcinogens don’t obey check-out times. Tobacco smoke is made up of highly complex chemical compounds that seep into furniture, fabric, drywall, dust, toys, windows, utility ducts—virtually everywhere. Those carcinogens, irritants, and pollutants can remain for months and maybe even years, says Matt. “We don’t really know how to get rid of it,” he says. “It attaches to anything and everything.” Products like ozone cleaners only make things worse, since they catalyze a secondary chemical reaction in nicotine that creates new carcinogens not even present in fresh tobacco smoke, he says. Research on leftover tobacco smoke—thirdhand smoke, it’s called—is preliminary, but results like these are unsettling. Thankfully, smoking in any hotel or motel is currently banned in Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin; several hotel chains, including Westin, Marriott, and Sheraton, have also banned the practice. But 65% of hotels in California allow smoking, a number Matt would like to see drop to zero around the country. “These tobacco smoke pollutants don’t really have a level where they’re safe,” he says. “There’s no level where you can say it doesn’t matter anymore.” More from Prevention: The 50 Healthiest Eco Spas In The US
