Exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to lung cancer and heart disease in non-smoking adults and to lower respiratory infections, asthma, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome in children. Secondhand tobacco smoke is especially harmful to pregnant women and to fetal development.

Though they are not smokers themselves, an estimated 1,000 or more Massachusetts adults and children die each year from exposure to secondhand smoke.

Passing laws that prohibit smoking in workplaces and other public places, and encouraging people to maintain smoke-free homes and vehicles not only protects nonsmokers from involuntary exposure to the toxins in tobacco smoke, but also may have the added benefit of reducing tobacco consumption by smokers and increasing the number of smokers who quit.

Young people who live in households with tobacco-free policies are less likely to smoke than those who live in households in which people smoke.

Massachusetts Smokefree Workplace Law (SFWL)

About the Smokefree Workplace Law

See what secondhand smoke projects we are working on (PDF) pdf format of MTCP Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Report file size 1MB



This information is provided by the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation & Prevention Program within the Department of Public Health.