Second Hand Smoke and Your Health

Smoking hurts your health. The links between smoking and cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses are well known. There is ample evidence that second-hand smoke is also a serious health risk for non-smokers, particularly children. Here's why:

1. When you breathe smoke from burning cigarettes, you're breathing in more than 4,000 chemicals--poisons like arsenic, benzene and lead--and at least 50 of those chemicals are known to cause cancer. Even small amounts of these chemicals can hurt your health.
2. A cigarette burning in an ashtray burns at a lower temperature, releasing more cancer-causing chemicals into the air. Second-hand smoke has twice as much nicotine and tar as the smoke that smokers breathe.
3. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified second-hand smoke as one of a small number of chemical compounds known definitely to cause cancer in humans. Research has confirmed that secondhand smoke is a serious risk factor for heart disease.
4. An average ventilation system takes more than an hour to remove 95 percent of the smoke from just one cigarette. You'd need a ventilation system as strong as a gale force wind to clean the air effectively.
5. Second-hand smoke is particularly dangerous for children. Their lungs are not as developed as adults are, and they breathe faster. When children are regularly exposed to smoke, their lungs may not grow as quickly or as large.
6. Children exposed to smoke get more colds, ear infections, and allergies. They're at a much greater risk of bronchitis, asthma, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Exposure to smoke raises their risk of tonsillectomies by 60 to 100 percent.

So if you smoke in your home or car, remember these tips:

• It's not enough to open a window.
• It's better to be alone in the house or car when you're smoking.
• It's best to quit smoking--or smoke outside well away from other people until you're ready to quit.

For more information about second-hand smoke, call the KFL&A Health Unit's Tobacco Information Line at
549-1232, ext. 1333 or 1-800-267-7875, ext. 1333.

Sources: KFL&A Council for Action on Tobacco "Think About Second-Hand Smoke"

Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and Addiction Research Foundation

"Home-Free Tips for Smokers and their Families".

Council For a Tobacco-Free Ontario (CFTO)

Municipal Election Survey '97 Project

Revised: 27-01-2003