Is secondhand smoking worse than smoking?

Secondhand smoke contains over 4000 chemicals including more than 40 cancer causing agents and 200 known poisons.

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the EPA as a Class A carcinogen - a substance known to cause cancer in humans.

Secondhand smoke contains twice as much tar and nicotine per unit volume as does smoke inhaled from a cigarette. It contains 3X as much cancer-causing benzpyrene, 5X as much carbon monoxide, and 50X as much ammonia. Secondhand smoke from pipes and cigars is equally as harmful, if not more so (Mayo Clinic release, Aug 97).

What is written below was the original answer left by a complete moron. I have NEVER heard anyone say that they thought second hand smoke was not harmful. They are obviously not paying attention.

It isn't!

The smoke that goes into the person lungs is a carcinogen ( a substance or agent producing or inciting cancer). The smokers lungs absorb all most all of the unhealthy contaminents and they exhale, basically, a small amount of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Although second-smoke is smelly it is not harmful.

This answer is apparently from a smoker who doesn't want to face the facts. Read the Surgeon General's Report on smoking. Not only does the nonsmoker breath in chemicals exhaled by the smoker, they also inhale smoke from the burning cigarette. Until we can make smoking bubbles, smoking will be a health hazard for smokers and non-smokers alike.

It not only hurts you but every innocent person around you who doesn't want to smoke. Every one who breathes in second-hand smoke is endangering their health, but young children are particularly at risk as their lungs are smaller and more delicate. They are, therefore, seriously affected by tobacco smoke and the chemicals it contains. Young people exposed to second-hand smoke at home are seven times more likely to smoke. Second-hand smoke contains cancer-causing and other toxic substances that are often in greater concentrations than in the smoke inhaled by the smoker. Some chemical compounds found in smoke only become carcinogenic after they've come into contact with certain enzymes found in many of the tissues of the human body, so the smoke that is breathed out may be worse than the smoke breathed in by the smoker through the cigarette.