Hotels that only maintain a partial smoking ban

Just because you choose the non-smoking hotel room doesn’t mean you’re completely protecting yourself from exposure.

A new study published in the journal, Tobacco Control, found hotels that only maintain a partial smoking ban still expose their occupants to cigarette smoke, and that compared to hotels with full smoking bans, nicotine levels on hotel room surfaces are two times higher.
The researchers studied the air quality and nicotine residue on the surfaces of smoking and non-smoking rooms in 30 hotels with partial smoking bans and 10 hotels with total smoking bans in California. They also took urine and finger swipe samples from non-smoking participants who spent the night in the hotels to assess their  exposure to nicotine.

Not surprisingly, levels of nicotine in the air were much higher in smoking than in non-smoking rooms, but levels in non-smoking rooms in hotels with partial bans were still 40% higher than in hotels with complete bans. The non-smokers who stayed in hotels with partial bans also had higher levels of nicotine and tobacco byproducts such as cotinine in their urine and finger residue samples. Rooms that previously housed smokers retained a legacy of nicotine and other potential cancer-causing compounds, known as third hand exposure, that were up to 35 times higher than levels found in hotels that enforced a complete ban on smoking.
The researchers suggest that non-smokers choose hotels that have full smoking bans, in order to truly reduce their exposure. As USA Today reports, the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation says that many large hotel chains like Marriott, Westin and Comfort Inn, are becoming smoke-free, and by law, hotels must be smoke-free in four states and 71 cities and counties in the U.S..