Effect on Nonsmokers’ Health

Admittedly, tobacco smoke contains a whole host of hazardous substances which, in sufficient quantities, are deadly. But do these become concentrated enough in a room or other enclosed area to cause serious harm even to nonsmokers?

The evidence indicates that nonsmokers are harmed by the smoke around them. “There is good hard data to suggest that the nonsmoker in any poorly ventilated, smoke-filled room is endangering his health,” Dr. Albert Soffer, American College of Chest Physicians executive director, told a meeting of his colleagues last October.

Recent medical literature says the same. The JAMA noted earlier this year: “Where the air circulation is typically poor, the nonsmoker will be subjected to a significant health hazard from a smoker.” And the Medical Tribune, February 2, 1972, explained: “Cigarette smoking is injurious not only to the smoker’s health​—it can be harmful to the innocent bystander as well.”

This is particularly true if the bystander suffers from heart disease or a lung disorder. Why so? For one reason, carbon monoxide in smoke interferes with the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, making the heart work harder to get oxygen throughout the body. Some doctors have even forbidden their patients to fly, since the smoke in commercial airplane cabins might kill them.

Nor do small children escape the harm done by tobacco smoke. The JAMA of January 15, 1973, drew attention to a study that “found that smokers’ children are ill more frequently than nonsmokers’ children, usually because of respiratory disease.” Children who have respiratory allergies are especially affected adversely by cigarette smoke.

Pointing to the seriousness of the tobacco-smoke problem, a report by Britain’s Royal College of Physicians said: “Action to protect the public against the damage done to so many of them by cigarette smoking would have more effect upon the public health of this country than anything else that could now be done in the whole field of preventive medicine.”

Tobacco smoke truly is dangerous! Therefore, do you think that a person can continue to smoke, spreading this poison into the air, and still really love his neighbor?

Many nonsmokers do not like to be engulfed by tobacco smoke. It sometimes saturates their body and clothes so much that when they return home, the tobacco smell is offensive to their families. But there is an even bigger objection.

Quite literally, cigarette smoke makes many nonsmokers sick. Today’s Health, April 1972, observed: “A recent study showed that more than 70 percent of a sample of healthy nonsmokers exposed to cigarette smoke suffered from eye irritation, nasal symptoms, headache, cough, sore throat or other ill effects.” Some smokers may object that nonsmokers are prejudiced against smoking and that they imagine discomfort.