PASSIVE SMOKING

noun (Health and Fitness) Involuntary inhalation of tobacco smoke from smokers in one's immediate vicinity or with whom one shares an environment. Etymology: Formed by compounding: smoking which is passive rather than active. The English term may be modelled on the German compound word Passivrauchen. History and Usage: Passive smoking was first recognized and named by medical researchers investigating the health hazards of tobacco smoke in the early seventies. The health risks of smoking became clearer and its popularity waned during the seventies and eighties; at the same time the plight of the passive smoker, living or working with a heavy smoker and forced to breathe smoke-filled air, gained ever greater popular awareness and sympathy. The passive smoker is exposed mainly to 'sidestream' smoke given off directly from a cigarette, pipe or cigar. Scotsman 16 June 1986, p. 11 In recent years scientists have found that passive smoking is a significant hazard for healthy people too. In 1988 the Froggatt Report, the Fourth Report of the Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health, stated that exposure to tobacco smoke increased the risk of lung cancer in non-smokers by up to 30 per cent and may account for several hundred deaths in Britain each year. Independent on Sunday 29 July 1990, Sunday Review section, p. 51