Toxic Risks of Passive Smoking

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Toxic Risks of Passive Smoking

Smoking cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and other related tobacco products pose significant health problems not only to active smokers, but also to those around them. The smoke emitted by a smoker, mainstream smoke, or by the end of a lit cigarette or other tobacco products, side-stream smoke, is referred to as environmental tobacco smoke (Bernhard, 2011). The smoke contains gases, fine particles, and chemicals that have toxic effects whether inhaled passively or actively. The slightest amount of tobacco smoke can cause lethal effects such as premature deaths and cancer.

Non-smokers inhale the smoke through passive smoking in cars, workplaces, bars, recreational parks and homes. Passive smoking causes equal harmful effects to non-smokers just as it does to smokers inhaling the smoke directly from the tobacco products. Side-stream smoke emitted by smoking objects contains finer particles than the mainstream smoke emitted by the smoker. The fine particles easily find their way to the lungs and the body cells where they penetrate deeply into the organs, and can settle long enough to cause adverse health effects. The secondhand smoke also contains harmful and carcinogenic chemicals such as carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide.

Toxic chemicals including formaldehyde, arsenic, ethylene oxide, benzene, vinyl chloride, cadmium, toluene, and nickel are also main components of the smoke, which are known to be carcinogenic. These chemicals are inhaled by both smokers and the people around them especially in enclosed and public places such as bus terminals, beaches, schools, and cars. The smoke exposes people to the risks of contracting various forms of cancer including lung, throat, breast, stomach, voice box, bladder and rectum. In addition, passive smoking has direct effects on the blood vessels and heart, predisposing people to heart diseases. The smoke is thought to cause hardening of the arteries, leading to heart attack and stroke. There is also irritation of the airway passages, which triggers pulmonary infections such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and asthma (Zeise & Dunn, 2000).

Unborn children are also victims of passive smoking when the mother is a smoker or inhales smoke while pregnant. Harmful and toxic substances pass through the mother’s bloodstream and reach the fetus, and after birth the baby is exposed through breast milk. The mother may experience miscarriage, and the born baby may suffer sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or have low birth weight. In addition, research has shown that babies exposed to smoke are prone to lung diseases and chronic airway infections during their development stages especially in the first year of growth. Smoking during pregnancy is also associated with childhood leukemia or cancer of the blood in children. Other common effects of smoking to children include pneumonia, coughing, wheezing, and bronchitis (Zeise & Dunn, 2000).

Passive smoking has adverse and toxic health effects on both adults and children. Federal and State governments have implemented some regulations in a bid to minimize smoking in public and workplaces. Others have imposed total bans on smoking in public places in order to protect people from the effects of passive smoking (Bernhard, 2011). The only and sure way of protecting nonsmoker adults and children from toxic and lethal effects of smoking is to eliminate completely smoking in indoor spaces and crowded public areas. This will ensure that the smoke containing toxic substances and chemicals does not find its way to the lungs and body cells of non-smoking adults and children. It is with no doubt that the smoke is equally toxic to both smokers and non-smokers, causing various health problems including premature death.

References

Bernhard, D. (Eds.). (2011). Cigarette smoke toxicity: Linking individual chemicals to human diseases. River Street Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Zeise, L. & Dunn, A. J. (Eds.). (2000). Health effects of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke: The report of the California environmental protection agency. Collingdale, PA: Diane Publishing.