The Facts on Secondhand Smoke

For more than two decades, the nation's most respected health organizations have come to the same conclusions about secondhand smoke: it's costly, dangerous and deadly. Each year, the body of scientific evidence continues to grow.

Secondhand smoke is a widespread threat to public health. According to the Surgeon General, "there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke," and smoke-free policies are the only effective way to protect nonsmokers from the health hazards of secondhand smoke.

For children, breathing secondhand smoke causes acute respiratory infections and increased risk of ear infections.1

Exposure to secondhand smoke causes children who already have asthma to experience more frequent and severe attacks.1

Secondhand smoke contains 11 known cancer-causing poisons and 250 known toxins2,3

According to the Surgeon General there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.1

Current heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems alone cannot control exposure to secondhand smoke in non-smoking areas.1

Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work in places like bars, restaurants, pool halls and bowling alleys have an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease.1

Secondhand smoke causes narrowing of the arteries.1

Secondhand smoke contains deadly poisons like arsenic, cadmium, formaldehyde, lead, and benzene.2,3

Last year, 49,000 nonsmokers died from secondhand smoke.4

When a person smokes a cigarette more than 4,000 chemicals are released into the air.5

Exposure to secondhand smoke costs Americans more than $9.5 billion a year in medical care, death and disease.6

Seventy-six percent of Minnesotans support the smoke-free law, and 82 percent believe that secondhand smoke exposure is a health hazard.7

Minnesota’s quit-smoking programs saw a massive increase in people looking to quit after the smoke-free law took effect.8

Sources

1 The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2006
2 National Cancer Institute. Risks Associated With Smoking Cigarettes with Low Machine-Measured Yields of Tar and Nicotine. 2001.
3 National Toxicology Program. 11th Report on Carcinogens. 2005.
4 California Environmental Protection Agency. Proposed Identification of Environmental tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant.2005.
5 Monograph 10: Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. National Cancer Institute. 1999.
6 Behan DF, Eriksen MP, Lin Y. Economic Effects of Environmental Tobacco Smoke. 2005.
7 ClearWay Minnesota℠. New Survey Finds 76 Percent of Minnesotans Support Smoke-Free Law [press release]. 2008.)
8 ClearWay Minnesota℠. Numbers for ClearWay Minnesota’s QUITPLAN Services Increase After Smoking Ban [press release]. 2007.