Assuming one trusts the
motives of the
American Cancer Society, here is what they have to say about second hand smoke (also known as
Environmental Tobacco Smoke and/or
ETS):
Secondhand smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), contains numerous human carcinogens for which there is no safe level of exposure. Scientific consensus groups have repeatedly reviewed the data on ETS. These include the US Environmental Protection Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Environmental Sciences' National Toxicology Program. Public policies to protect people from secondhand smoke are based on the following detrimental effects of ETS.
•Each year, about 3,000 nonsmoking adults die from lung cancer as a result of breathing secondhand smoke.
•ETS causes an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from heart disease in people who are not current smokers.
•ETS causes coughing, phlegm, chest discomfort, and reduced lung function in nonsmokers.
•Each year, exposure to secondhand smoke causes 150,000 to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in US children younger than 18 months of age. These infections result in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations every year.
•Secondhand smoke increases the number of asthma attacks and the severity of asthma in about 200,000 to 1 million asthmatic children.
•Secondhand smoke contains over 4,000 substances, more than 40 of which are known or suspected to cause cancer in humans and animals and many of which are strong irritants.
This may be shouted down as anecdotal evidence, but it is undeniably the case that people who work in environments saturated with cigarette smoke have a much higher instance of health and respiratory ailments than those who do not work in such places.
Bartenders in New York City are at very high risk for bronchial ailments. I know of one specific example in which a bartender had to have part of a lung removed due to his exposure to second hand smoke.
This is one of the reasons that Smoke Free Workplace legislation is being discussed by the New York City city council. This is a labor issue; people should not be forced to accept high risk of lung cancer to earn a living (and don't give me any spurious crap about how "they don't have to work there").
It seems to me that those who dismiss the dangers of second hand smoke fall into that category of people who willfully deny that their actions and choices can have detrimental effects on others; the "I'm the only person in the world" syndrome.
Information from the American Cancer Society website.