When you are around a person who is smoking, you inhale the same dangerous chemicals as he or she does. Breathing secondhand smoke can make you sick. Some of the diseases that secondhand smoke causes can kill you.
Protect yourself: do not breathe secondhand smoke. But completely avoiding secondhand smoke is very hard to do. Most of us breathe it whether we know it or not. You can breathe secondhand smoke in restaurants, around the doorways of buildings, and at work. When someone smokes inside a home, everyone inside breathes secondhand smoke. Some children even breathe secondhand smoke in day care.
There is no safe amount of secondhand smoke. Children, pregnant women, older people, and people with heart or breathing problems should be especially careful. Even being around secondhand smoke for a short time can hurt your health.
