The U.S. Surgeon General has concluded that breathing even a little secondhand smoke poses a risk to your health.

Scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Breathing even a little secondhand smoke can be harmful to your health.

Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer.

Secondhand smoke is a known human carcinogen and […]

Smoking is the single greatest avoidable cause of disease and death. In this report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General, the Surgeon General has concluded that:

Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces […]

1964 – Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service (387 pages)
1967 – The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review (227 pages)
1968 – The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1968 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review (117 pages)
1969 – The Health Consequences […]

Since the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health in 1964, 27 additional reports have concluded that tobacco use is the single most avoidable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States.
These reports have assembled the scientific data on smoking and many related diseases and then evaluated the data to assess […]

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general.
Quitting smoking has immediate as well as long-term benefits, reducing risks for diseases caused by smoking and improving health in general.
Smoking cigarettes with lower machine-measured yields of tar and nicotine provides no clear benefit to health.
The list […]

Smokers are more likely to be absent from work than nonsmokers, and their illnesses last longer. (p. 627)
Smokers tend to incur more medical costs, to see physicians more often in the outpatient setting, and to be admitted to the hospital more often and for longer periods than nonsmokers. (p. 652–653)
Smokers have a lower survival rate […]

Toxic ingredients in cigarette smoke travel throughout the body, causing damage in several different ways. (p. 616)
Nicotine reaches the brain within 10 seconds after smoke is inhaled. It has been found in every part of the body and in breast milk. (p. 616)
Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells, preventing affected cells from […]

Smoking reduces bone density among postmenopausal women. (p. 716)
Smoking is causally related to an increased risk for hip fractures in men and women. (p. 718–719)
Of the 850,000 fractures among those over age 65 in the United States each year, 300,000 are hip fractures. Persons with a hip fracture are 12% to 20% more likely to […]

Smoking harms many aspects and every phase of reproduction. Despite having greater increased knowledge of the adverse health effects of smoking during pregnancy, many pregnant women and girls continue to smoke (estimates range from 12% to 22%). It is estimated that only 18% to 25% quit smoking once they become pregnant. (p. 527)
Women who smoke […]

In 2001, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in more than 118,000 deaths. More than 90% of these deaths were attributed to smoking. (p. 500)
According to the American Cancer Society’s second Cancer Prevention Study, female smokers were nearly 13 times as likely to die […]