Third-hand Smoke - Wut?

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First, I do not want this to become another smoking ban thread. We have one of those. I want to know what the heck this new term is.

A little background:
Kentucky is discussing an $0.80 per pack cigarette tax. The governor and the rest of the Democrats are all in favor of it. You know the usual fuzzy math of raising tax revenue while decreasing smoking (you cannot have both happen). So, they had this little round-table discussion and the state Republican leader was sitting there and said that he would prefer a statewide smoking ban and if the governor really cared about health he would go that route, because that way it would protect people from the dangers of secondhand and third-hand smoke.

I looked at my wife and basically said, "Uh, wut?" She said that my brother had researched it and over the weekend had been talking about how it was even worse than secondhand smoking.

So, what is it? Apparently it is the stuff from smoke that clings to hair, clothes, furniture, etc.

Here is the New York Times article I discovered discussing it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/health/research/03smoke.html

A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke’
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: January 2, 2009

Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air for their children, but experts now have identified a related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after second-hand smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.

Doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to describe these chemicals in a new study that focused on the risks they pose to infants and children. The study was published in this month’s issue of the journal Pediatrics.

“Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is bad, but they don’t know about this,” said Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

“When their kids are out of the house, they might smoke. Or they smoke in the car. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”

Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”

The study reported on attitudes toward smoking in 1,500 households across the United States. It found that the vast majority of both smokers and nonsmokers were aware that second-hand smoke is harmful to children. Some 95 percent of nonsmokers and 84 percent of smokers agreed with the statement that “inhaling smoke from a parent’s cigarette can harm the health of infants and children.”

But far fewer of those surveyed were aware of the risks of third-hand smoke. Since the term is so new, the researchers asked people if they agreed with the statement that “breathing air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of infants and children.” Only 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers agreed with that statement, which researchers interpreted as acknowledgement of the risks of third-hand smoke.

The belief that second-hand smoke harms children’s health was not independently associated with strict smoking bans in homes and cars, the researchers found. On the other hand, the belief that third-hand smoke was harmful greatly increased the likelihood the respondent also would enforce a strict smoking ban at home, Dr. Winickoff said.

“That tells us we’re onto an important new health message here,” he said. “What we heard in focus group after focus group was, ‘I turn on the fan and the smoke disappears.’ It made us realize how many people think about second-hand smoke — they’re telling us they know it’s bad but they’ve figured out a way to do it.”

The data was collected in a national random-digit-dial telephone survey done between September and November 2005. The sample was weighted by race and gender, based on census information.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the phrase third-hand smoke is a brand-new term that has implications for behavior.

“The central message here is that simply closing the kitchen door to take a smoke is not protecting the kids from the effects of that smoke,” he said. “There are carcinogens in this third-hand smoke, and they are a cancer risk for anybody of any age who comes into contact with them.”

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.
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Now, I can get it. This residue left behind, if inhaled/absorbed can be similar to secondhand smoke. But they don't say that. No, they say it is worse. WORSE!!! So secondhand smoke is worse than smoking and now this is even worse?

So, lungs add toxins to cigarette smoke, making secondhand smoke bad? Because if seconhdand smoke was worse than smoking then smoking should be helpful or something if the exhaled smoke has more toxins in it, right? And now even more toxins are being added from upholstery? What?

I don't get it.


Well, I do. This has always been a part of the secondhand smoke debate. But the secondhand smoking argument is not working as effectively as they think it should. They can't keep children safe from their smoking parents well enough and some municipalities refuse to redefine public to mean private business in order to place this regulation on them. So, now they have split secondhand smoke into two categories, so that they can have double the "evidence" to push their agendas.

At least that is what I am guessing is going on.

I mean, I am reading this article and only one official person is quoted in describing this. He sounds official enough. "Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School." Harvard Medical School, Dr., pediatrics....wait assistant? He doesn't even teach his own classes or do his own research?

But then I thought, well he was on the research team, except no. The research team was from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston, not Harvard Medical School. And if he did stuff for both, they did not clarify that.


I have to say, that as someone whose job is watching news all day, I think this reeks of political posturing by activist groups. Because at the end of the day what I am seeing is them saying, "Yes, that smoke you smell in your furniture is the same smoke that was floating through the air."



Anyway, that is what I am seeing and that is what I am taking from it, But as I only just heard about it this morning I as hoping someone else might have more perspective on this, more info, or whatever.

Oh, and exactly how much radiation is in the radioactive materials they found? Because that sounds like a lot of scare tactics to me.
 
Personally I have never heard about second-hand smoking nor third-hand smoking. We always referred to it as "active" and "passive" smoking. I guess passive smoking is the same as second-hand smoking? I cannot imagine three different stages of smoking other than to smoke, or to not smoke but being affected by it by people in your environment that smoke.

Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”
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Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”
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Sounds like second-hand and third-hand smoking is nearly the same? :dunce:


Oh well, I'll join in on the "What is third-hand smoking" question then...

Also, getting less kids or people to smoke by charging higher taxes is never going to help. ever. But I guess no discussion allowed in this thread :P
 
I think these people do not know what the definition of second-hand is. It means you didn't get the item (smoke) directly from the source (cigarette), you got it from the person who got it directly from the source.

"Second-hand" was already a bad description of the smoke that comes from the unfiltered end of the cigarette. "Third-hand" is a horrific description of smoke residue from the smoke that comes from the unfiltered end of the cigarette.

Third-hand smoke could only be smoke that has been breathed out by the original smoker, breathed in by a passer-by, coughed out by the passer by, and then breathed in by yet another victim.

What they describe as "third-hand smoke" is actually "first-hand residue".

So... stupid name.

But I like this as a synopsis of the dangers posed:

FK
So, lungs add toxins to cigarette smoke, making secondhand smoke bad? Because if seconhdand smoke was worse than smoking then smoking should be helpful or something if the exhaled smoke has more toxins in it, right? And now even more toxins are being added from upholstery? What?
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Bad joke incoming:


Adam Smith would've called it invisible-hand smoke.
 
And the moral of this story is... politicians and lobbyists love to exploit that the average person will accept whatever is spoon feed to them via the media, without putting thought into.

Honestly, all the smoking bans are starting to get annoying, and I don't even smoke. Unless I've been drinking. But to force privately owned businesses to ban smoking is just... un-American and stupid. Which is what has been done in the great State of Washington.
 
I think the writers of the Simpsons were on to something when having Helen Lovejoy say that ever popular phrase, "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"
 
Danoff
But I like this as a synopsis of the dangers posed:
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I can't claim credit or first use for it as I believe Famine argued that case in one of the smoking ban discussions.


Usually people counter that with, "Well, it is the smoke from the tip of the cigarette." My response to that is, yes I know that is what they test, but any smoker will tell you that the majority of the smoke around them did not come from their cigarette sitting and smoldering. Especially now that they use the tobacco that goes out if you don't continue puffing on it. That cracks me up when I start talking to smokers outside at work and then they get upset because they have to dig their lighter back out.
 
Danoff is quite right... the term secondhand smoke is ironic, because smoke is smoke is smoke.

The whole issue is strange. Here we have a country fighting to do a wishy-washy partial ban on one toxic, carcinogenic, psychoactive general consumer product when other toxic, carcinogenic prducts, such as lead water pipe and asbestos insulation have been (or are being) regulated out of existence, and other psychoactive but non-carcinogenic products (namely marijuana) are simply illegalized.

The big problem with cigarettes is that they're a gift that keeps on giving. I had an uncle whose lungs went nearly twenty years after he stopped... cold turkey... and the damage was traced to cigarette smoke. Our family has a genetic condition that causes "blebs" (structural weakness in the walls of our lungs) that are aggravated by smoking. Only affects the smokers, and sometimes manifests long after they quit. That's on top of the various cancer concerns and dangers attributed to fiberglass going into your lungs (from filter tips)...

Life was heck when I was a kid. Smoke on airplanes, in restaurants, you sometimes had to go outside just to breathe. (Kinda hard to do on an airplane). If you're at home and the stuff is stinking up your furniture, your clothes (hmmm... easy for Dad to know if you've been in his wallet... if your hands smell like smoke... :lol: ), etcetera. Even before the furor over secondhand smoke, we'd finally gotten a ban on smoking indoors when my brother was born. It's not a big imposition. The smoker gets some nice, fresh air , and so does everyone else inside.

I'm not really sure what this current study is supposed to achieve... make people change to go outside to smoke? Maybe it's to boost sales of smoker's jackets? :lol:
 
I always thought it was interesting that my mother could swear up and down that she had stopped smoking yet when you get close to her you can clearly smell the smoke even when it's been a while since she last had a smoke.
 
I agree that the same stuff I smell in my cloths every morning is the same stuff that goes floating through the air in my house. I also believe that secondhand smoke is more dangerous to ones health than the smoke going through the cigarette's filter. Because it's not filtered.

But either way, it's more a nuisance to me than anything. I absolutely hate smelling like smoke all the time, because everyone notices it, even people who smoke, and I have to explain to them that I don't smoke and this and that. Sometimes it's embarrassing, but mostly it just pisses me off.

A home of my own would certainly be smoke free. But, I'm wholeheartedly against anyone forcing me to make my home smoke free. That's my decision, and nobody else's.
 
As a parent of a child with a serious lung issue, I can protect him from second hand smoke and will do my best to encourage him to not smoke at all. That said, I have a huge problem with "first hand residue" as there is nothing I can do to remove him from that when we are out somewhere like shopping.
 
I think the important line in the quote is:

The belief that second-hand smoke harms children’s health was not independently associated with strict smoking bans in homes and cars, the researchers found. On the other hand, the belief that third-hand smoke was harmful greatly increased the likelihood the respondent also would enforce a strict smoking ban at home, Dr. Winickoff said.
Click to expand...

Which, to me, reads "Okay, we've got people thinking that 'secondhand smoke' exists and is nasty, so they're not smoking round their kids any more. But they're still smoking. If we make them think that there's another, even more deadly side-effect, you know, regardless of if it's true or not, then they stop smoking altogether!"

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.
Click to expand...

But where did they come from? Carbon monoxide I get - it's relatively easy to see how you get carbon monoxide from smoking (though quite difficult to see how it takes on a solid form and attaches itself to clothes and hair). But how on Earth does smoking a cigarette - which contains no heavy atoms of any flavour - generate Polonium-210 unless you're smoking inside a nuclear reactor core?

It's like saying that jetski wakes can contain human excrement. Yes, they can, but only if you're jetskiing through raw sewage.
 
i think it means that the chemical "hydrogen cyanide" which is among the substance in "third-hand" smoke is also then found in polonium-210.

So they are linking the two based on one substance "third-hand smoke" contains with one substance polonium-210 contains.
 
No, they're using a semi-colon-separated list of the substances found in THS.

Besides which, Polonium-210 is just atoms of Polonium.
 
Famine
But how on Earth does smoking a cigarette - which contains no heavy atoms of any flavour - generate Polonium-210 unless you're smoking inside a nuclear reactor core?
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Cigarettes do contain heavy atoms including Polonium-210, as this recent study addresses.

Danoff's terminology objections notwithstanding, the risk that so-called "thirdhand" smoke poses is a different type of risk to that of secondhand smoke because the concentrations can build up over time to a point where they can become potentially dangerous. I personally think that the issue is relatively unimportant when compared to the health risks of first and secondhand smoking, but that's not to say that it isn't a problem at all...

If ever you wanted direct evidence of just how much smoking residue can build up over time, get yourself along to The Albert (bar) on Roman Road in the east end of London and have a quick look at the roof :ill:
 
if they'd tried this trick in the states with Alcahol, there'd be no more booze ANYWHERE. what they're trying to do is eliminate tobacco from use like they tried with Alcahol...and they're succeding.

there will be "smoke-easies" pretty soon, complete with mobsters selling cigarettes at 100 bucks an INCH.

there's only one exception to this ban...SMOKELESS tobacco. since it's not actually BURNED...
 
Touring Mars
If ever you wanted direct evidence of just how much smoking residue can build up over time, get yourself along to The Albert (bar) on Roman Road in the east end of London and have a quick look at the roof :ill:
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I've been to that bar! And it wasn't pleasant. There is also another one near Finsbury Park opposite a bagel shop which has the worst staining I've ever seen.

It's worrying to think that those chemicals could potentially be causing health problems. Are the chemicals a natural by product of the tobacco or are they added to the paper and filter?
 
Touring Mars
...concentrations can build up over time to a point where they can become potentially dangerous.

If ever you wanted direct evidence of just how much smoking residue can build up over time, get yourself along to The Albert (bar) on Roman Road in the east end of London and have a quick look at the roof :ill:
Click to expand...
I wonder what would happen if I climbed the ol' ladder and took a couple licks of my yellow cieling.

It used to be white, btw.
 
Sniffs
if they'd tried this trick in the states with Alcahol, there'd be no more booze ANYWHERE. what they're trying to do is eliminate tobacco from use like they tried with Alcahol...and they're succeding.
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Which, again due to my sons situation (CF), would be absolutely fine with me. I'm past the point of being nice about it, too. If you're going to smoke, fine, but keep it away from my son. I know a family who had a 21 year old with CF. One day he decided that he was done doing his treatments and started going to the bar.

He was dead within six months. Point being second/third hand smoke does kill. Granted I'm talking about around 1% (30,000/303,824,640) of the US population, but when it hits this close to home, I can, and should be, a bit paranoid and overprotective.

After my son was diagnosed, I told my dad if he wanted to be around, he had to stop smoking because even if he went outside, everything still stunk. That was over 2 years ago and he hasn't smoked since.

Sniffs
there will be "smoke-easies" pretty soon, complete with mobsters selling cigarettes at 100 bucks an INCH.
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Which is another thing my wife and I are overly tired of. People come into the ER, the doctor gives them a prescription for a (literally) $10 antibiotic and they say they can't afford it. Really? Then why is your boyfriend walking in with two bottles of Coke and a bag of chips from the vending machine and you have cigarettes in your pocket? If you can afford those, you can afford something that will actually help you get better.
 
Omnis
Bad joke incoming:

Adam Smith would've called it invisible-hand smoke.
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Since I'm reading this thread second-hand, via second-hand computer, is this seventh-hand smoke? Or mirrors?

All plastics break down over time, with exposure to heat and cold, chemical reations to other substances, sun's rays, and time. I've read that old plastics (such as a car's interior) have high amounts of inhale-able substances, but their effects are unknown at this time. And old textiles, fabrics, and cloths can hide tons of mites, dusts, collect airborne substances over time.

I'm the first to agree that second-hand smoke is caustic...But raising awareness to third-hand smoke is like raising awareness that humans produce dangerous and unhealthy amounts of carbon dioxide because we are actively engaged in breathing.

Pass me the dihydrogen monoxide.
 
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niky
I'm not really sure what this current study is supposed to achieve... make people change to go outside to smoke? Maybe it's to boost sales of smoker's jackets? :lol:
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The goal is to increase the likelihood of passing regulation that force private businesses to not allow their customers to participate in a legal act. And to also guilt smokers into stopping.

BayConRong
I always thought it was interesting that my mother could swear up and down that she had stopped smoking yet when you get close to her you can clearly smell the smoke even when it's been a while since she last had a smoke.
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I don't know the specific situation, but if she has friends that smoke and she hangs out with them while they smoke she can get the smell on her clothes still. It happened to me in college all the time where I would hang out with people that smoked and at the end of the day I smelled like smoke too.

Keef
I also believe that secondhand smoke is more dangerous to ones health than the smoke going through the cigarette's filter. Because it's not filtered.
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Except that the majority of smoke floating through the air does not come from the tip of a cigarette. It mostly comes from being sucked through the filter, into lungs, which also filter it, and then exhaled. And now that many cigarettes are made with the so called "safe" tobacco that goes out if the cigarette isn't puffed on (to prevent fires) there is even less secondhand smoke that is coming from the tip of a cigarette.

So, in all reality secondhand smoke is filtered at least twice.

TB
That said, I have a huge problem with "first hand residue" as there is nothing I can do to remove him from that when we are out somewhere like shopping.
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The only way that could be avoided would be a straight out ban on smoking tobacco.

Famine
Which, to me, reads "Okay, we've got people thinking that 'secondhand smoke' exists and is nasty, so they're not smoking round their kids any more. But they're still smoking. If we make them think that there's another, even more deadly side-effect, you know, regardless of if it's true or not, then they stop smoking altogether!"
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The fact that within two weeks of this report I heard local politicians using the term tells me you are on the right track. They can't keep up with video game research that is newer than two or three years old, but they are using this within two weeks? Someone sent out a mailer.

Side note: The Republican leader that brought this up seems to be making a point, although I am not sure it was the one he was attempting. The Democrats do not want to have a statewide smoking ban because they want to tax people for it. And even anti-smoking groups are opposed to it. God forbid these people agree with a Republican. The whole thing has shown that these people don't care about health, they just want to raise a fuss and have something they can use for power grabs.

Touring Mars
Cigarettes do contain heavy atoms including Polonium-210, as this recent study addresses.
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But where is it coming from?

And I like how the guy in your link thinks cigarettes should carry a radiation exposure warning. How strong exactly is this radiation? Worse than what I would get if I stood out in the sun for too long? Worse than opening a microwave door without hitting the stop button first?

Danoff's terminology objections notwithstanding, the risk that so-called "thirdhand" smoke poses is a different type of risk to that of secondhand smoke because the concentrations can build up over time to a point where they can become potentially dangerous.
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Honestly, how much would that take? I know people who chain smoked their entire adult lives, in the same chair in their living room, and never had any radiation exposure symptoms.

If ever you wanted direct evidence of just how much smoking residue can build up over time, get yourself along to The Albert (bar) on Roman Road in the east end of London and have a quick look at the roof :ill:
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So, we are measuring tar, which comes in visible amounts every puff, to stuff that is so minute that not even a Geiger counter can detect it? I mean, some of this stuff is only detectable in labs with specialized equipment, so saying that visible tar stains is a sign that this stuff builds up to significant quantities is a bit misleading.
 
Touring Mars
If ever you wanted direct evidence of just how much smoking residue can build up over time, get yourself along to The Albert (bar) on Roman Road in the east end of London and have a quick look at the roof :ill:
Click to expand...

:) I'll have to remember to wash my hands after I crawl around on the underside of a smoker's roof.
 
I wonder what it must be doing to the lungs if it can cause such bad staining on a ceiling.
 
FoolKiller
But where is it coming from?
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It occurs naturally, and its presence in tobacco (and hence cigarettes) has been known about for ages. Although it is also present in many other plants (all plants?), the amount we ingest will be relatively low/stable, but smokers (and by extension, people who are exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis) will invariably be exposed to more Polonium than normal and hence increase their chances of suffering the ill-effects associated with polonium ingestion.

FoolKiller
So, we are measuring tar, which comes in visible amounts every puff, to stuff that is so minute that not even a Geiger counter can detect it? I mean, some of this stuff is only detectable in labs with specialized equipment, so saying that visible tar stains is a sign that this stuff builds up to significant quantities is a bit misleading.
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The amount of Polonium in cigarette smoke may well be minute, but it is very toxic and even a small build up can be potentially far more dangerous than you are suggesting. I would say that visible tar stains were a pretty good indicator of where you might find elevated polonium levels too. It is the fact that these things can and do linger long after the smoker has left the building that is the basis for concern.

That said, I wouldn't be too worried about it, considering that you could probably achieve the same effect by starting to eat 40 cucumbers a day, or by going for sushi with Andrey Lugovoy.
 
Touring Mars
It occurs naturally, and its presence in tobacco (and hence cigarettes) has been known about for ages. Although it is also present in many other plants (all plants?), the amount we ingest will be relatively low/stable, but smokers (and by extension, people who are exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis) will invariably be exposed to more Polonium than normal and hence increase their chances of suffering the ill-effects associated with polonium ingestion.

The amount of Polonium in cigarette smoke may well be minute, but it is very toxic and even a small build up can be potentially far more dangerous than you are suggesting. I would say that visible tar stains were a pretty good indicator of where you might find elevated polonium levels too. It is the fact that these things can and do linger long after the smoker has left the building that is the basis for concern.

That said, I wouldn't be too worried about it, considering that you could probably achieve the same effect by starting to eat 40 cucumbers a day, or by going for sushi with Andrey Lugovoy.
Click to expand...

That was my question, my assumption and my conclusion all rolled into one 👍

Which again suggests sensationalism over rationality on behalf of those adopting this cause. Wait until they find out that the human body contains gold.
 
Touring Mars
It occurs naturally, and its presence in tobacco (and hence cigarettes) has been known about for ages. Although it is also present in many other plants (all plants?), the amount we ingest will be relatively low/stable, but smokers (and by extension, people who are exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis) will invariably be exposed to more Polonium than normal and hence increase their chances of suffering the ill-effects associated with polonium ingestion.
Click to expand...
Those effects would be?

The amount of Polonium in cigarette smoke may well be minute, but it is very toxic and even a small build up can be potentially far more dangerous than you are suggesting.
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I think you are underestimating the speed at which tar buildup becomes apparent. I know smokers who have to clean their car windows once a week, and they probably smoke less than pack's worth of cigarettes in their car in that time frame.

I would say that visible tar stains were a pretty good indicator of where you might find elevated polonium levels too.
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One cigarette filter has visible tar stains, does that mean it already has elevated levels of polonium?

My point is that tar becomes visible in a very short time. It isn't obvious because it is an even spread on something like a wall. You don't notice that you are looking at it until you either start cleaning the walls or it begins to sweat from humidity.

It is the fact that these things can and do linger long after the smoker has left the building that is the basis for concern.
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My thing is that if it i such a concern then why is it that the majority of smoking related illnesses are often blamed on nicotine or tar? Why do I never here of smokers with polonium related illnesses?

Honestly, I want to know how much polonium is in one cigarette and how much it would take to actually have ill-effects on a person.

That said, I wouldn't be too worried about it, considering that you could probably achieve the same effect by starting to eat 40 cucumbers a day, or by going for sushi with Andrey Lugovoy.
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So, vegetarians are nearly as bad as smokers? I agree. I never trust anyone that won't allow their diet to recognize that they have sharp, pointy teeth.
 
Polonium-210 is highly radioactive and the ill-effects would be... well... death through radiation sickness. 1 microgram would be sufficient to kill an average person (the LD50 - the lethal dose in 50% of cases - is 1 microgram)
 

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