Secondhand Smoke Facts

Secondhand smoke is the name for the sickening, poisonous smoke given off by a burning cigarette, cigar, or pipe. Smokers may claim to have a right to smoke, but nonsmokers have a more important right to breathe safe air. So the next time one of your friends lights up in front of you, fire off these facts about secondhand smoke.

• It can produce six times the pollution of a busy highway when in a crowded restaurant.
• It causes 30 times as many lung cancer deaths as all other regulated pollutants combined.
• Secondhand smoke makes clothes and hair stink.
• Secondhand smoke causes wheezing, coughing, colds, earaches, and asthma attacks.
• It fills the air with many of the same poisons found in the air around toxic waste dumps.
• It destroys the smell and taste of food.
• Secondhand smoke causes reddening, itching and watering of the eyes.
• It kills about 3,000 non-smokers each year from lung cancer.
• Secondhand smoke causes up to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in infants and young children each year.

Adapted from http://www.cdc.gov/