For the few people who don't know, 2nd hand smoke (or passive smoking as it's otherwise called) is all the smoke that isn't absorbed by smoker. This can be either the smoke you exhale or the smoke that is released when the cigarette is burning. The smoke directly from the cigarette is much more dangerous, but both can harm you and your pets.
3rd hand smoke is less well known. It's the smoke residue that is left on clothes, carpets and any fabric you smoke around. It is less dangerous than 2nd hand smoke, as it is trapped in fabric, but if it is still a risk.
So how does 2nd hand cigarette smoke hurt you as a non-smoker? The same way it hurts a smoker, with the 5000 chemicals in each cigarette (1). 70 of these are known carcinogens (cancer causing chemicals) but even the others which don't cause cancer can still harm you.
Some of these chemicals include: Arsenic, Cyanide and Formaldehyde to name just a few. (2)
2nd and 3rd hand smoke is perhaps the most insidious way cigarettes can harm people, as sometimes you don’t even notice it. After all, almost 85 percent of tobacco smoke is invisible.
Perhaps the worst part is that 2nd hand smoke affects people who have never smoked, so they get the same health problems without smoking a single cigarette.
And every year thousands of people die as a direct result of 2nd and 3rd hand smoke.
Cancer Research says that just by regularly being around a smoker, non-smokers are 25% more likely to get cancer. This isn't even including other smoking related diseases such as heart disease, strokes and COPD.
2nd hand smoke effects children the most though, with 165,000 new cases in the UK each year linked to passive smoking. (3)
The reason that children are affected so much more are 2 fold, 1) children are smaller so the same amount of smoke is a much larger percentage of their oxygen consumption and 2) they can't get away from smoke (such as leaving the house or not smoking in a car if their parents are smoking).
These reasons can be applied to animals as well.
