Tobacco Control Program

• Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.
• This mixture contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, more than 40 of which are known to cause cancer in humans or animals, and many of which are strong irritants, including formaldehyde, cyanide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and nicotine.
• Secondhand smoke has been classified as a Group A carcinogen by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
• More specifically, EPA concluded that environmental tobacco smoke is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in U.S. nonsmokers.
• Secondhand smoke poses a health threat to those who breathe it.
• Secondhand smoke is also referred to as Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), involuntary smoking or passive smoking.