You don’t have to be smoking yourself for it to have a bad effect on you. Just being around tobacco smoke is harmful for you, even if it's someone else's smoke. When a person smokes a cigarette, most of the smoke does not go into their lungs. Rather it goes into the air, where anyone nearby can inhale it. Many public places ban smoking completely. But still, people get exposed to secondhand smoke, especially children whose parents smoke. Even people who try to be careful about where they smoke may still slip up and hurt those around them. There is no such thing as a risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Even short-term exposure has the potential to increase the risk of heart attacks. A second hand smoker gets exposed to hundreds of chemicals that are toxic or carcinogenic. This includes formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, and many others as you will read later in this article. What is secondhand smoke? Secondhand smoke refers to smoke that you breath in involun