What is Second-hand Smoke?

Second-hand smoke comes from two places: smoke breathed out by the person who smokes, and smoke from the end of a burning cigarette.

Around 350 New Zealanders die each year because of exposure to other people’s tobacco smoke [PDF, 44KB, 15 pages] (Woodward A, Laugesen M). This makes second-hand smoke the leading environmental cause of death in this country.

Second-hand smoke contains a lethal mix of more than 4,000 chemicals, such as arsenic, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and carbon monoxide. Two hundred are poisons, 43 cause cancer.

Second-hand smoke has been shown to contribute to:

• coronary heart disease
• lung cancer
• acute stroke
• eye and nasal irritation
• nasal sinus cancer.

Second-hand smoke is particularly dangerous for children, and can cause chest infections, glue ear, childhood asthma, and deaths from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS, or cot death).