Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Yesterday, someone wrote
 
>If a person/shelter is to put on their application for an adoption that
>the potential adopter cannot smoke, do they also put a clause in saying
>if the adopter drives a car they cannot adopt?  Which is the lesser of
>the two evils?  Now, in saying that I do not smoke, but people very
>close to me do, and though I do not agree with smoking I cannot say
>that I am any better than them because I do drive a vehicle.
 
Hmmmm.  It is pretty unlikely that any of us ferret owner/drivers out
there routinely back our car's exhaust pipe up to an open window of our
house and let the car idle there for say, the six minutes at a time that
it typically takes to burn a cigarette...perhaps twenty times over in a
day (to represent a full pack.  Forty times over in a day to represent
two packs.) That *would* tend to make carbon monoxide, a gas found in
both cigarettes and automobile exhaust a problem for any ferrets inside
the largely closed environment of the house, as the writer suggested.
 
I think perhaps that those who are hesitant to adopt a ferret to a
household inside which someone actively smokes are more concerned with
some of the other by products of cigarette smoking inside the largely
closed environment of the house.
 
These include, but are not limited to; acetone, ammonia, arsenic,
benzene, benzopyrene, butane, cadmium, carbonyl sulfide, formaldehyde,
hydrazine (ROCKET FUEL!) hydrogen cyanide, lead, nickel, nicotene,
phenol, polonium 210(RADIOACTIVE!), propylene glycol, quinoline,tar, and
turpentine.  All of which are either carcinogenic, promote the growth of
tumors, or are toxic.
 
Trapped inside the poorly circulating environment of a home or apartment,
these compounds, released multiple times per day and re-breathed, do
present a greater risk to the occupants than does the air outside the
home, befouled by cars.  The risk is especially great for a little animal
who takes a preportionately greater 'hit' than does a larger bodied
human.
 
And no, I don't hate smokers.  I hate what smoking does to people.  And
if I operated a shelter, I don't think I would adopt to people who smoked
in their house, because I wouldn't want the ferrets to get sick from
second hand smoke.  I'd be sad if that meant I couldn't adopt to some
really nice people who wanted a ferret, but if they truly cared about the
ferret they would understand.  In 2005, we know how bad the cigarettes
are.  Not the people, the *cigarettes*.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5031]