Stop Strata Smoking … For the Sake of the Children

Last month I posted about the recent flare up in the debate about banning smoking in strata buildings - in both common areas and inside apartments.

Since then, I’ve done some more research on the issue after Nicole Johnston, from Griffith University, sent me a Journal article about the effects of tobacco smoke exposure on children who live in multi unit housing.

The article was written by Karen M Wilson, Jonathan D Klein, Aaron K Blumkin, Mark Gottlieb and Jonathan P Winickoff, was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics and makes some very interesting findings and observations including the following things.

• Tobacco smoke exposure causes illness in children, including asthma and respiratory infections, and has been associated with sudden infant death syndrome, metabolic syndrome and otitis media.
• The researchers surveyed over 5200 children in this study.
• Tobacco smoke drift can be measured in high quantities more than 20 feet from an outdoor source.
• Tobacco smoke can migrate through walls, ductwork, windows, and ventilation systems of multi unit dwellings and potentially affect residents in other units far removed from the smoking area.
• Tobacco toxins may persist on and be absorbed from surfaces in the indoor environment well beyond the active smoking – known as third hand smoke.
• Some US municipalities have proposed legislation to reduce or ban smoking in apartment buildings including introducing smoke-free policies.

So, it seems from this study that children in apartments had higher mean cotinine levels than children in detached houses and potential causes for this result could be seepage through walls or shared ventilation systems.

I was very surprised by the article and am far more concerned about the possibility of adverse health effects in strata buildings from smoking than I was about the annoying smoke and odours everyone else complains about.

The authors also say, when commenting on the proposition that dictating what can be done in private dwellings is an infringement on personal privacy and liberty that, ‘the argument only holds true if smoking in an adjacent apartment has no impact on one’s neighbour’.

So, maybe we should all stop smoking in strata buildings to help save the children.

Francesco …