Maybe you've walked into a room where no one is smoking, but you can still smell cigarettes in the air.

That effect of cigarette smoke is now being called 'third hand smoke.'

"Third hand smoke is the residue that is of chemicals and poisons and other things in tobacco smoke that are left behind after the cigarette has been extinguished," said Renee Trowbridge, a public health educator with the Marathon County Health Dept.

"Third hand smoke is that smoke that resides in people's clothing, in people's hair, in people's homes," says Jodi Punke, D.O., a family physician with Aspirus Family Health Clinic.

Entering a confined space where someone has just smoked, like a vehicle, the pungent scent lingers.

And though research is limited, one study suggests surface residue left from the cigarette smoke containing dangerous carcinogens lingers too.

Trowbridge says, "If third hand smoke is made up of the same poisons and chemicals as second hand smoke that's where the conclusion that this is a dangerous substance as well, comes from."

Doctors say that children of smokers are more likely to have respiratory problems.

And even contact with third hand smoke can harm them.

Fine hairs called cilia, are destroyed when children breathe in smoke lingering in clothing or on common surfaces.

"So if you think about it with a small child they have no control over that, they're not smoking but the exposure to third hand smoke or second hand smoke basically wipes those out," said Punke, D.O.

She says if you smoke, quit, but if you can't, don't smoke in front of your child, in your home or your car.

Some smokers think they're being unfairly targeted with this new concept.

Trowbridge says, "I think smokers feel when we bring something new like this it's another way to pick on them."

She says it's important to remember smoking is a serious addiction, and most smokers have tried to quit.

There will be less third hand smoke July 5th, when the statewide smoking ban goes into effect.