What are the dangers of secondhand smoke?

What are the dangers of secondhand smoke?

Someone who has never smoked who breathes in the passive smoke from someone else's burning cigar, pipe or cigarette takes in to their system those toxins, carcinogens, and a little bit of nicotine but not as much of that, as the person who is smoking. It is just a smaller proportion. And what kind of risks are those? The people exposed to heavy second-hand smoke, have the same risk as a smoker, just at a smaller proportion because the toxic load is less when you filter it through a room as opposed to taking it directly into your lungs. Airways, asthma, sinusitis; as you have to breathe in the smoke. Lung disease, emphysema, heart disease all increase risk of cancer. In the United States alone where our statistics are very careful, we know that 50,000 people die every year as a conservative estimate--it's more than that--because they were exposed to second-hand smoke, even though they themselves did not smoke. Fifty thousand people a year pay the price for the 47 million people who smoke and don't control where their smoke is going and who it is affecting.