Make your home and car smoke-free: A guide to protecting your family from second-hand smoke

A Message to Readers

This guide is intended to help families remove second-hand smoke from their homes and cars. If you are a parent who smokes, you may have heard that second-hand smoke is harmful to your family but you may not be aware of the extent of harm it could cause. This guide will give you practical tips about what you can do to eliminate the harm caused by breathing in second-hand smoke in your home and car. Hopefully, it will raise new issues that you might not have thought about, help you talk to your family about smoking and ultimately rid your home and car of second-hand smoke.

Introduction

Breathing in second-hand smoke causes over 1,000 deaths in Canadian non-smokers from lung cancer and heart disease every year.¹

In 2004, almost one sixth (15%) of Canadian homes with children under 18 years old reported their children were exposed to second-hand smoke from cigarettes, cigars or pipes. Although this number is dropping, it still means that over one million children under 18 years old continue to be exposed regularly to second-hand smoke. If two parents smoked half a pack each a day in the home, in one year a child may be exposed to the smoke from over 7,000 cigarettes.²

The good news is that most Canadian families agree they should avoid exposure to second-hand smoke in their home and car. Currently, 87 percent of Canadian homes already restrict smoking in some way,² and parents report there is general agreement about these restrictions among family members.³ Parents also report that the primary reason they want to cut back on the amount of second-hand smoke in their home is because of their children.³

What do these statistics mean to you as a parent? Well, for one thing, they mean that you are not alone. Across Canada, hundreds of thousands of families are struggling with the issue of secondhand smoke and are looking for ways to protect their children from its harmful effects. This guide has been developed to give families the tools they need to make their home and car smoke-free.