Passive smoking is the
involuntary inhalation of smoke from tobacco products. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by all people within that environment.
Such smoke is called secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Scientific evidence shows that continuous exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes may disease, disability, and death.
Secondhand smoke or ETS is a combination of side stream smoke coming straight from the burning tobacco and the mainstream smoke that is exhaled by the smoker.
It comprises of over 4000 chemical constituents, a large proportion of which are the inducers of respiratory illnesses and around 40 are known or suspected carcinogens.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified ETS as a class A (known human) carcinogen along with other known carcinogens such as arsenic, asbestos and benzene etc. SHS or ETS is unfiltered, thus the levels of carcinogens in it are much more than in smoke inhaled directly by an active smoker. Smoking of a cigarette produces smoke from two major places, mainly from the tip of cigarette and from the rest of the cigarette as the hot vapors liberated through the cigarette and its filter.
About 70% to 80 % of ETS is from the burning tip of cigarette and comprises of the highest levels of nicotine, carbon monoxide, tar and various other carcinogens. Therefore,
a constant exposure to an ETS is apparently even more injurious than directly smoking a cigarette for an equivalent period.
There are various long terms and terminal effects of exposure to second hand smoke.
Immediate effects:-
Eye irritation, cough, sore throat, headache, nausea and dizziness.
Long-term effects:
Lung cancer: The major cause of lung cancer among non-smokers is secondhand smoke. One of the studies revealed that hospitality workers who were exposed to secondhand smoke became three times more prone to lung cancer.
Cardiovascular problems: ETS can induce short-term and long-term harm to the heart by decreasing its functional capacity and lowering the capacity of blood to carry oxygen. Some of the chemicals in secondhand smoke can block or harden the arteries, causing problems like atherosclerosis, hypertension and later heart attack. In one of the studies, it was found that secondhand smoking enhances the risk of a heart attack by at least two times.
Stroke: Non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke run at least 80% more risk of stroke than do the non-exposed people who are not exposed to smoke.
Asthma: Non-smokers exposed to ETS at work showed at least twice the risk of asthma than the non-exposed people did.
Those who were exposed to ETS at home as well, showed as much as five times greater risk for asthma than the non-exposed people did. In individuals who already suffer from asthma, exposure to ETS can significantly decline their lung function.
Effect on Children
• Kids that are exposed to secondhand smoke from either parent during the first year of their lives are far more likely to be afflicted with asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, bronchiolitis and other respiratory problems than kids who were not exposed.
• Secondhand smoking may also predispose children to the impairment of the blood circulatory system, behavioral problems and olfactory (nasal) problems.
• It also increases their susceptibility to develop cancer during their adulthood.
Since the 1980s there has been substantial evidence that there is a relationship between parents smoking in the house and children developing asthma and other related illnesses.
A 30-minute exposure to the level of secondhand smoke that one might normally inhale in an average bar setting was enough to result in blood vessel injury in young and otherwise healthy lifelong nonsmokers. Compounding the injury to the blood vessels themselves, the exposure to smoke impedes the function of the body's natural repair mechanisms that are activated in the face of the blood vessels' injury, the researchers reported. Many of these effects persisted 24 hours later.
Research has generated scientific evidence that secondhand smoke (that is, in the case of cigarettes, a mixture of smoke released from the smoldering end of the cigarette and smoke exhaled by the smoker) causes the same problems as direct smoking, including heart disease, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and lung ailments such as COPD, bronchitis and asthma. Specifically, meta-analyses have shown lifelong non-smokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20–30% greater risk of lung cancer, and those exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased risk of 16–19%.
Second hand smoke is more injurious than actual smoking.
Smokers not only kill themselves, but also lead others to it. They do not have the right to kill others
. We should be fighting this menace with even more stricter and stringent laws and policies than what already exist.