Passive smoking

What is it? It’s when people breathe in secondhand smoke. It’s the smoke which has been exhaled - plus the “side stream” smoke created by the lit end of a cigarette.

How to protect against second-hand smoke

The best way is to keep the environment around you smoke free and to do that you should quit smoking completely. If you’re not ready to quit, make every effort to keep your cigarette smoke away from other people and never smoke indoors or in the car.

The risks of passive smoking

Second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 irritants, toxins and cancer-causing substances. Opening windows and doors or smoking in another room in the house doesn’t protect people. Smoke can linger in the air for two to three hours after you’ve finished a cigarette, even with a window open. Second-hand smoke can cause cancer and lung disease just the same as smoking.

Children and passive smoking

Passive smoking is especially harmful for children as they have less well-developed airways, lungs and immune systems. One in five children in the UK live in a household where at least one person smokes and, as a result, they’re more likely to develop asthma, chest infections, meningitis, ear infections, coughs and colds. To protect children, since October 2015 it’s been illegal to smoke in a private vehicle if there’s a person under 18 present.

How safe are e-cigarettes?

Research into this area is continuing, but it seems that e-cigarettes release negligible amounts of nicotine and the limited evidence available suggests that any risk from passive vaping to bystanders is small relative to tobacco cigarettes.