Clean Smoke

What is secondhand smoke?

Secondhand smoke is also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or passive smoke. It is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco: sidestream smoke (smoke that comes from the end of a lighted cigarette, pipe, or cigar) and mainstream smoke (smoke that is exhaled by a smoker).

When non-smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke it is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. Non-smokers who breathe in secondhand smoke take in nicotine and other toxic chemicals just like smokers do. The more secondhand smoke you are exposed to, the higher the level of these harmful chemicals in your body.

Why is secondhand smoke a problem?

Secondhand smoke causes cancer

Secondhand smoke is classified as a "known human carcinogen" (cancer-causing agent) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds. More than 60 of these are known or suspected to cause cancer.

Secondhand smoke causes other kinds of diseases and deaths

Secondhand smoke can cause harm in many ways. In the United States alone, each year it is responsible for:

An estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease in non-smokers who live with smokers

About 3,400 lung cancer deaths in non-smoking adults

Other breathing problems in non-smokers, including coughing, mucus, chest discomfort, and reduced lung function

50,000 to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in children younger than 18 months of age, which result in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalisations annually

Increases in the number and severity of asthma attacks in about 200,000 to 1 million children who have asthma

More than 750,000 middle ear infections in children

Pregnant women exposed to secondhand smoke are also at increased risk of having low birth- weight babies.

Secondhand smoke may be linked to breast cancer

An issue that is still being studied is whether secondhand smoke increases the risk of breast cancer. Both mainstream and secondhand smoke contain about 20 chemicals that, in high concentrations, cause breast cancer in rodents. And we know that in humans, chemicals from tobacco smoke reach breast tissue and are found in breast milk.

But a link between secondhand smoke and breast cancer risk in human studies is still being debated. This is partly because breast cancer risk has not been shown to be increased in active smokers. One possible explanation for this is that tobacco smoke may have different effects on breast cancer ris