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Second-hand
Smoke
Are you a non-smoker? Are you shy about defending yourself against smokers?
Or are you a smoker who doesn't realize the harm you may be doing to non-smokers?
Non-smokers are no longer a silent majority. They mind if you smoke. And
they're speaking up. They know tobacco smoke pollutes their air. And new
research gives them facts to defend themselves. It shows that second-hand
smoke (also referred to as environmental tobacco smoke and sidestream smoke)
has harmful effects on non-smokers.
Facts
- Contains more hazardous substances than inhaled smoke and contains
2.7 times as much nicotine, 70% times more tar and 2.5 times greater
carbon monoxide levels.
- Two-thirds of the smoke from the burning cigarette goes into the
air.
- Sidestream smoke has higher amounts of cancer-causing and other dangerous
things than the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker.
- There is twice as much tar and nicotine in sidestream smoke than
mainstream.
Second-hand smoke and your health
- Second-hand smoke causes all the same ailments suffered by smokers.
- Exposure to second-hand smoke is linked with not only with lung cancer,
but also with heart disease, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), nasal
sinus cancer and a host of other diseases in both adults and children.*
Second-hand smoke is also associated with middle-ear infections,
asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.
- Aggravates symptoms of hay fever and asthma.
- Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke is estimated to cause about
300 lung cancer deaths — about two percent of all lung deaths in Canada
each year.
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The Lung
Association is working to limit exposure to second-hand smoke by
participating in and supporting smoking by-law efforts across Ontario,
including: Smoke-free restaurants in
Toronto. |
* according to a report by the National Cancer Institute
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