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Secondhand tobacco smoke is extremely toxic; when you breathe it you are exposed to more than 50 cancer-causing agents. These toxins also poison your airways, making you cough and making it harder for you to breathe. Long-term exposure to tobacco smoke causes asthma, pneumonia, ear and sinus infections, reduced stamina for sports, and eventually heart disease and cancer.
We do not think people are deliberately trying to injure you, but they may be unaware of the potential that their smoking has to harm your health. Perhaps you can share this with them when they are smoking around you. Because smoke is a gas, trying to restrict it to a particular room doesn’t really work.
It is not rude to want to safeguard your health. If people take their cigarettes outside like a lot of them are being forced to do now, thank them for being considerate of your needs. If they don’t, it would be sensible for you to leave the room whenever they light up.
We spend an inordinate amount of time telling people, no, pleading with people to quit smoking. The point being that is important for smokers to realize that quitting smoking is the name of the game because it kills you and it hurts others. With that in mind here are 11 thoughts and facts about second hand smoke you probably did not know,
- Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).
- Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.
- Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.
- Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.
- Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada. Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.
- Eighteen states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia prohibit smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars. Montana and Utah prohibit smoking in most public places and workplaces, including restaurants; bars will go smokefree in 2009. New Hampshire prohibits smoking in some public places, including all restaurants and bars. Four states – Florida, Idaho, Louisiana and Nevada – prohibit smoking in most public places and workplaces, including restaurants, but exempt stand-alone bars. Fifteen states partially or totally prevent (preempt) local communities from passing smokefree air ordinances stronger than the statewide law. Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon have passed legislation prohibiting smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars, but the laws have not taken effect yet.
- Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.
- Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 790,000 physician office visits per year. Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.
- In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis. Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.
- Research indicates that private research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.
- The current Surgeon General’s Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Short exposures to secondhand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.
