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[quote=Anonymous]Here's one of the ways in which even small exposures to tobacco smoke produce adverse changes in the body:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2974716/

"How much exposure to tobacco smoke can the lungs endure before damage ensues? The answer appears to be none, based on gene activity measured by researchers at Cornell University. “No level of smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke [SHS] is safe. Even at the lowest detectable levels of exposure, we could detect changes in gene expression within the cells lining the airways,” says coauthor Ronald Crystal, head of pulmonary and critical care medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Crystal and coworkers at Cornell analyzed gene activity in small airway epithelial cells collected from 121 healthy volunteers. The type of cells tested are where early damage first occurs that leads to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bronchogenic cancer, according to Crystal.

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People often wonder what level of exposure to SHS is harmful—is it a problem, for instance, to hang out with smoking friends once or twice a week? Crystal’s study “employs sophisticated molecular genetic techniques to address this very important public health question of whether a threshold exists,” says Norman Edelman, a professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University Medical Center and chief medical officer at the American Lung Association. The finding that no level of tobacco smoke exposure appeared safe “is important for informing both individual behavior and public health policy,” Edelman says.[/quote]

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