Passive smoking
What is it?
When people breathe in secondhand smoke it’s known as passive smoking. Second-hand smoke is the smoke that’s been exhaled plus the “side-stream” smoke created by the lit end of a cigarette.
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 has been against the law to smoke in a private vehicle if there’s a person under 18 in there with you.
How to reduce your risk
Keep the environment around you smoke-free so you can 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.
How safe are e-cigarettes? Available evidence suggests that the risk from passive vaping to bystanders is small compared to tobacco cigarettes.
Bernice McCabe, OBE, about whose work I wrote in connection with a ground-breaking cancer patients, trial for NHS brain sadly died in February.