The Terrifying Dangers of Secondhand Smoke

 

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 involuntarily. Exposure to secondhand smoke can be due to sidestream or mainstream smoke. Tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars or pipes release sidestream smoke. A person near you who is actively smoking exhales mainstream smoke. The common thing between these sources is that they both release harmful chemicals into the air that are dangerous for nonsmokers.

Effect of secondhand smoke on children

Young children are the ones who suffer the most due to secondhand smoking because they cannot avoid it. They get exposed to secondhand smoke mostly due to adults (parents or others) smoking at home. According to recent studies, children whose parents smoke:

●      Get sick more often

●      Develop lung infections (like bronchitis and pneumonia)

●      Are more likely to cough, wheeze, and suffer from shortness of breath

●      Get more ear infections

●      Secondhand smoke also triggers asthma attacks or makes the symptoms of asthma worse.

Harmful chemicals in secondhand smoke

The multitude of harmful chemicals that are in the smoke inhaled by smokers are also found in secondhand smoke, including some cancer causing ones such as:

●      Benzene

●      Benzo[α]pyrene

●      Cadmium (a toxic metal)

●      Tobacco-specific nitrosamines

●      1,3–butadiene (a hazardous gas)

●      Acetaldehyde

●      Formaldehyde

There are many factors that affect which chemicals and how much of them occur in secondhand smoke. These factors include the kind of tobacco used in manufacturing a specific product, the way the tobacco product is smoked, the chemicals added to the tobacco, and the material in which the tobacco is wrapped.

Protection from secondhand smoke

The only way nonsmokers can be fully protected from secondhand smoke is by eliminating smoking in indoor workplaces and public places and by creating no smoking areas. Open windows, using fans and ventilation systems, and restricting smoking to certain rooms in the home or during certain times of the day is not enough to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.

●      Do not smoke or allow anyone to smoke in your home

●      Do not smoke or allow anyone to smoke in your car, even with the windows down

●      Make sure that the places where your children often go to (park, school, friend’s house, play area, etc.) are tobacco free

●      Teach children to avoid secondhand smoke

●      Go to restaurants, and other places that are smokefree

If you smoke, one of the most important things you can do for your own as well as your children’s health is to stop smoking. Quitting is the best way to stop your children from being exposed to secondhand smoke.

Now, no one can say that it is easy to quit. Talk with your doctor if you need help. There are many medicines such as Alcoban Drops that may help you quit. This is a homeopathic anti-addiction treatment that reduces the severity of the withdrawal symptoms. It also curbs cravings so that you can avoid relapse.

If you are a parent, you need to make every effort to keep your children away from smoking, smokers and secondhand smoke. Parents who smoke need to quit, if not for themselves then at least for the sake of their children.

Finally...

Given the terrifying health effects of secondhand smoke, the right to avoid exposure to secondhand smoke is increasingly being viewed as a human right. This is why many countries, including India, have enacted laws to prohibit smoke in common areas, such as restaurants, outside of schools and hospitals, and on playgrounds.

Despite these no-smoking laws, the only way to fully protect yourself from secondhand smoke is smoking cessation. If you live in a building, cigarette smoke can travel between rooms and apartments. So, try to make the area around you as smoke free as possible.