Secondhand Smoke Facts

Everybody knows that cigarette smoke is full of harmful chemicals. Being in secondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers and smokers alike. Smokers breathe a double dose increasing the destructive effects of secondhand smoke.

• Secondhand smoke causes 30 times many lung cancer deaths
• Secondhand smoke kills about 3,000 nonsmokers annually from lung cancer.
• Secondhand smoke causes coughing, wheezing, earaches, colds and asthma attacks.
• Secondhand smoke causes up to 300,000 lung infections (such as bronchitis and pneumonia) in infants and young children annually.
• Secondhand smoke fills the air with many poisons.
• Secondhand smoke can make 6 times the pollution of a busy highway when in a crowded pub.

Other facts about smoking:

• Every day 1,200 people die in America from smoking-related diseases.
• Every day in the United States, about 3,000 children under the age of 18 begin smoking.
• Teen smokers have weaker hearts and smaller lungs than teens who do not smoke.
• Teen smokers fall ill more often than teens who do not smoke.
• The habit usually grows. Addicted smokers begin with 5 or 10 cigarettes a day and then smoke a pack or two a day.
• Teen smokers are more often to use other drugs and alcohol.
• There are approximately 4.5 million adolescents in the United States are smokers.
• Smoking-related illnesses claim more American lives than alcohol, AIDS, suicide, car accidents, homicide and illegal drugs combined.
• Smoking is the single most preventable reason of premature death in the USA.

Give your kids a solid anti-smoking basis that will help them get rid of influences to smoke as they go through their formative years. It’s up to you as parents to do all that you can to protect your kids from the dangers that tobacco use presents. Education about nicotine addiction is the best step to start.