The Bog of Eternal Stench

What non-smokers endure from smokers.

I love people, almost all people, so it is difficult for me to be this frank about it, but they need to know.

On the movie The Labyrinth, the Goblin King, played by David Bowie, liked to punish the transgressions of his subjects by casting them into a place in his realm called The Bog of Eternal Stench. If the person so punished is unable to immediately leave this misty, farty place of gastly, unbearable olfactory assault, the aroma becomes a part of them so that they carry the smell out with them after they escape.

Steve Martin had a comedy line that he used in the early years of his career where he opined on his preferred response to the question, “Do you mind if I smoke?” His reply, followed by roaring laughter and applause from the crowd was, “Do you mind if I fart?”

The sad irony of it all is that one of the chemical substances released by tobacco smoke is a poison called Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN). One of the symptoms of HCN poisoning is the loss of a sense of smell. So, cigarette smokers can never fully appreciate just how much their habit makes them stink.

I mean it really stinks, so that a non-smoker can smell the breath of a smoker from across a dinner table as soon as the smoker exhales in their direction. I’m told that it isn't that bad for some people who used to smoke and then have quit, because the habit never really leaves, and it might smell sweet and nostalgic to them. On the other hand, the smell of cigarette smoke also makes some former smokers physically ill.

It's been said that kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray. So it's a good thing that the smoker’s breath gives the nose of the non-smoker sufficient warning before they get that close. However, it isn't just the smoker's burning tobacco field breath that sets them apart from the crowd. Cigarette smoke is sticky and carries an ionic charge, so that as soon as the smoke leaves the smoker, it is attracted to nearby neutrally-charged surfaces and glues itself there. This means that the smoker's skin, hair, and clothes exude the stale aura of every cigarette they've smoked since they last showered and changed into clean clothing. Everyone standing nearby while a smoker smokes also gets it absorbed into their hair and clothes, and they carry it home with them, whether they themselves smoke or not.

Everything the smoker owns, their vehicle, their habitation, smells of stale tobacco smoke, as does the very cloud of air that follows them around. If a non-smoker is standing near a smoker and not repulsed and wrinkling their nose, it’s because they are being polite. Personal body odor has to be pretty severe, and a day old, before it can compete with stale cigarette smoke, and like BO, non-smokers sometimes talk about the smell behind the smoker's back.

I recently learned that when you live in an apartment and share a common bathroom vent system or pipe and utility path between floors, a smoker living above or below you, who smokes in the bathroom with the fan on, is sharing their experience with their neighbors. In fact, since the bathroom door was open, the hallway, kitchen, and living room of my apartment filled with the scent, so I had to open the front door to the outside and the balcony door to allow the Wyoming wind to replace all the air in my living space. By the way, it was 28 degrees F (-2 degrees C) outside. Afterward, when the furnace kicked on to bring the apartment to a more civilized indoor temperature, the smell entered the furnace room through the pipe paths and furnace burner exhaust paths between the floors. From there, the furnace fan pumped the scent out into every room and corner of my apartment. I had to repeat the freeze-out to warm-up cycle several times until the smell was completely banished.

On weekend nights, that same stale, second-hand tobacco smoke combined with stale, second-hand marijuana smoke so that it smelled like someone was smoking while wrangling and branding a herd of skunks.

So, smokers, please be aware of the impact that your smoking has on those who you live and work around. Not only are you killing yourself, but you are unknowingly offending the noses of everyone nearby.

Beyond the smell, some people with breathing problems such as asthma can be endangered by second-hand smoke. In fact, the cloud of tobacco smoke smell around a smoker, and even their breath, can trigger an asthma attack in someone else nearby. Also, in the same way that a smoker carries with them a cloud of tobacco smoke smell from their breath, hair, and clothes, those who need pure oxygen from a tank or O2 concentrator carry with them a very dangerous oxygen saturation zone that can set them on fire if they get too close to a smoldering cigarette. These are the main reasons why smoking isn't permitted in hospitals or the homes of those on oxygen.

Dude smoking under a no smoking sign.

For the above reasons, laws have been passed in some jurisdictions in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere that restrict indoor smoking in public places; however, this was not always the case. As a teenager long ago, I was in a bicycle crash, and my mother, an asthmatic, took me to the local medical clinic at the remote U.S. Army Base where we lived so that I could get my lacerated elbow treated. As we waited at the office service window to be seen by a nurse, the corporal was sitting at his desk, smoking, literally in the shadow of a “No Smoking” sign. The fan in the room blew the smoke past us through the service window, and my mother started wheezing. I started diplomatically hinting at him by repeatedly looking at him, the sign, the ashtray, and her, and then back around again.

Finally, he noticed.

“Oh, you must be some of those damn Mormons,” he said with a snort of derision.

“Well, yeah,” I replied calmly, pointing a thumb towards my mother. “But also, she's an asthmatic.”

He crushed out that cigarette so fast he nearly burned his fingers.

I love telling that story, but we live in a more enlightened time now, and most of the smokers I encounter these days are not nearly that rude. They know of the impact their habit has on those around them and try to do what they can to mitigate it.

Gone are the days when people would blow their smoke directly in my face when they learn that I'm a non-smoker or LDS.

So, I write this out of love for my fellow Earthlings because I know that people these days who smoke would want to know about the offensive smell.

I hope this helps.