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Think About It - Environmental Tobacco Smoke
The Basics
Tobacco smoke has about 4,000 chemicals in it and 200 known poisons.
Every time someone smokes, poisons such as benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide are let into the air, which means that not only is the smoker breathing them but so is everyone else around them.
National surveys show that most nonsmokers-and most smokers themselves-believe that people should not smoke when they are around nonsmokers. Making other people breathe secondhand smoke is becoming less and less acceptable.
“Mainstream” and “Secondhand” Smoke
Every time anyone lights up a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, tobacco smoke goes into the air in two forms.
The first is mainstream smoke, which the smoker breathes into his/her lungs through the mouthpiece when he/she inhales or puffs. Nonsmokers also breathe mainstream smoke after the smoker exhales or breathes out.
The second, and even more dangerous form, is secondhand smoke, which goes straight into the air from the burning tobacco.
Secondhand smoke—which a nonsmoker breathes in whenever he/she is around someone who’s smoking—actually has higher amounts of some harmful compounds than the mainstream smoke breathed in by the actual smoker.
There are many cancer-causing substances, as well as more tar and nicotine, in secondhand smoke than mainstream smoke.
Carbon monoxide, which robs the blood of oxygen, can be two to fifteen times higher in secondhand smoke.
Secondhand Smoke and Lung Cancer
The fact that cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer in smokers is well-known.
In 1986 the Surgeon General of the United States said that involuntary smoking could cause lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers.
Effects on Children
Secondhand smoke has an especially bad effect on infants and children whose parents smoke.
Babies whose family members smoke at home during their first two years of life have a much higher rate of lung diseases, such as bronchitis and pneumonia, than babies with nonsmoking parents.
Children who had smoking parents showed damaged lung function compared with those whose parents were nonsmokers.
Smoking by pregnant women can lead to premature or low weight babies that may have breathing and other health problems.
Ear infections and asthma are more common in children whose parents smoke than in those whose parents do not smoke.