Second Hand Smoking

Passive Smokers at Risk

Passive smoking, also known as secondhand smoking, is the involuntary inhalation of cigarette and cigar smoke from those around you. This occurs when the smoke of cigarettes or tobacco penetrates your surrounding environment, causing all the people within the premises to inhale the smoke.

Do you belong to a family of smokers? Or maybe you have children exposed to smokers around them? If so, they they will be at risk of having cardiovascular or respiratory disease and cancer even though they do not smoke themselves. This has been the biggest driving source for a ban of smoking in clubs, restaurants and other public areas.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has shown to have the same effects on health as direct smoking.

The Risks

What are the possibilities that non-smokers will acquire the same effects that smokers have? Remember that each smoke released by tobacco contains 4,000 toxic chemicals, and a number of them are carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). People who smoke in an indoor environment may increase the risk of affecting non-smokers because of the limited ventilation. Secondhand smoke is rapidly absorbed into the blood, thus decreasing the coronary flow of blood in the body and increasing the risk of heart attack and respiratory diseases to non-smokers.

Long List of Diseases for Passive Smokers

Much research has been conducted to determine the effects of secondhand smoke to non-smokers. They found that:

• passive smokers may develop chronic diseases like heart disease and COPD.
• lifelong passive smokers who are living with their partners (smokers) have the greatest chance of acquiring diseases like chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart diseases, and even cancer.
• many children exposed to secondhand smoke may have low birth weights, respiratory diseases, or middle ear infection, which may even cause their death.
• being exposed to secondhand smoke may cause irritating effects to persons exposed, causing asthma attacks to children and adults.

Plea to Quit Smoking

These are some of the harmful effects that passive smoking may contribute to non-smokers, and especially more so in innocent children. Let's be responsible and know the effects of smoking on our body, to others, and to the environment. This is not merely a simple issue but a big problem that is being faced by many people around the world. Smoking cessation and responsible smoking may help lessen the risk of diseases to non-smokers and provide children a healthier environment.