Second-hand smoke: what it is and how to avoid it

Second-hand smoke is not just what a smoker exhales. It’s also smoke that comes directly and unfiltered from the burning end of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. There are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, and second-hand smoke actually contains higher amounts of harmful chemicals than filtered smoke inhaled by the smoker – chemicals such as nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and heavy metals.

If you don’t smoke, even just 8 to 20 minutes of being around second-hand smoke can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, and just 30 minutes starts to harden your arteries. Second-hand smoke can put you at increased risk for heart disease, lung cancer, and lung diseases. It can even make you more likely to get a cold. Each year in Canada, second-hand smoke is the cause of death for at least 1100 non-smokers.

Children are especially susceptible to second-hand smoke because their lungs and immune system are less developed and they breathe at a faster rate than adults. Children exposed to second-hand smoke are at higher risk for more severe asthma, lung and ear infections, lung disease, leukemia, tonsillitis, impaired growth, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Second-hand smoke inhaled by pregnant women is also very harmful to unborn babies and can increase the risk of miscarriage and pregnancy problems.

How do you keep yourself or your children from inhaling second-hand smoke? Here are some tips:

• Tell all friends, family, and other guests that your house and car are completely smoke-free zones. Having a smoker blow smoke out a window isn’t enough – it won’t all stay outside. A no-smoking room has to be no-smoking all the time. If people smoke in a room, the chemicals in smoke can cling to furniture and other objects and can be transmitted later to other people. Even if people smoke in just one room in a building, it may pass through the ventilation to other rooms.
• Remove all ashtrays from your house and car.
• If your car has been smoked in, clean everything thoroughly, and vacuum the upholstery.
• If you have smokers in the family or will be hosting smokers, set up a designated smoking zone in your yard well away from any entrances or air intakes. Make it welcoming, and put a standing ashtray there.
• If you live in an apartment building, you may want to consider putting filters on vents and sealing places such as electrical outlets, where smoke can leak through from the other side of a wall.
• When you’re travelling, make sure to book non-smoking hotel rooms – or, better, completely non-smoking hotels, if you can.

Remember: if you can smell smoke – even “stale” smoke – you’re inhaling it.