What is passive smoking?

When a cigarette is smoked, about half of the smoke is inhaled / exhaled by the smoker and the other half floats around in the air. Passive smoking/ involuntary tobacco smoke is the exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or secondhand smoke.

What does secondhand smoke contain?

It contains more then 4,000 chemicals which includes poisons and carcinogens. (e.g. tar, nitcoine, carbon monoxide, ammonia, dimethylnitrosamine, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and acrolein).The U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen.

Immediate effects of passive smoking

- Eyes and nose irritation, which lead to coughing, sore throat, headache, dizziness, and nausea
- Adults with asthma can experience a significant decline in lung function when exposed
- Short-term exposure to tobacco smoke also has a measurable effect on the heart in non-smokers. Just 30 minutes exposure is enough to reduce coronary blood flow.