Will secondhand smoking harm me?

I don't smoke and I play a lot of sports. I try to stay away from smokers as much as possible, but some of my friends are smokers. I might be getting secondhand smoke from 2-3 cigarettes a week. Is this really bad and I should stay away from my friends or is this nothing to worry about?

Second hand smoke DOES have an effect on you. I don't really think that is that big of a deal, but i woulnd't hang out with them as much as your friends that don't smoke.

Between 70% and 90% of non-smokers in the American population, children and adults, are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. It is estimated that only 15% of cigarette smoke gets inhaled by the smoker. The remaining 85% lingers in the air for everyone to breathe. If a person spends more than two hours in a room where someone is smoking, the nonsmoker inhales the equivalent of four cigarettes.
Secondhand smoke is the third leading preventable cause of disability and early death (after active smoking and alcohol) in the United States. For every eight smokers who die from smoking, one innocent bystander dies from secondhand smoke.

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).

Over the past two decades, medical research has shown that non-smokers suffer many of the diseases of active smoking when they breathe secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and contributes to the development of heart disease. Never smoking women who live with a smoker have a 91% greater risk of heart disease. They also have twice the risk of dying from lung cancer.
Never-smoking spouses who are exposed to secondhand smoke have about 20% higher death rates for both lung cancer and heart disease.
Secondhand smoke increases heart rate and shortens time to exhaustion. Repeated exposure causes thickening of the walls of the carotid arteries (accelerates atherosclerosis) and damages the lining of these arteries.

When a pregnant woman is exposed to secondhand smoke, the nicotine she ingests is passed on to her unborn baby.
Women who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy:

have a higher rate of miscarriges and stillbirths
have an increased risk of low birthweight infants
have children born with decreased lung function
have children with greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to experience increased frequency of:

asthma, colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other lung diseases
middle ear infections
sinus infections
caries in deciduous teeth

Ventilation systems and designated smoking sections do not protect patrons from ETS.
Current estimates of how smoking increases the risk of various diseases are dramatically underestimated because the ill effects of secondhand smoke inhalation are not taken into account.

it harms you quicker than the person smoking.

absolutly!

second hand can cause things like lung cancer

stand up wind of them

I don't think that being exposed to 2 or 3 cigarettes a week will affect you much. Being exposed to a lot of it, and especially indoors, can harm you (at least it did harm me). I wouldn't worry too much.

I can tell you from experience . I had co workers that were heavy smokers. The smoke went from their cigarette to my nose and went into my lungs . I was sick for a good month from all that second hand smoke.

And there isn't anything you can do about it ..

either they quit or you quit them you could die from second hand smoke my aunts fiance smoke so i dont go to there house for nothing they have to come to my house were i dont allow smoking

NO IT IS NOT GOING TO HURT YOU. It wouldn't even likely hurt you to actually smoke 2 or 3 cigarettes a week. I'm an Industrial Hygienist and I know it takes fare more exposure than that to cause harm. Likely at that average I would say you may inhale 1 full cigarette in about 2 years. If you want to avoid it avoid it and yes smoke is bad but secondhand smoke is not what anybody tells you it is. If you live in a home with parents who smoke all of the time it's one thing. To simply be around it now and then is entirely another. Militant anti-smokers who tell you you'll die from passing a smoker in public are uninformed and generally ignorant. I am also a NON-smoker but I simply know better because I deal with these kinds of things on a regular basis.

It depends on how much you're with these people. For example, if you lived with them and they smoked alot then yes it'll harm you by resulting in athsma or other respiratory problems. But if you're only with these people who smoke for a short period of time and you inhale their smoke you'll be fine.It's probably better to avoid them because even though you're with them for a short period of time, their smoke can still effect you. Secondhand smoke can still kill people who are around it alot.

Secondhand smoke is really bad. Even though you are not actually smoking, you are still inhaling lots of stuff that can give you cancer.

In fact...

Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.9
Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 790,000 physician office visits per year.10 Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.11
In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.12 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.

(from http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvL...

I don't know how bad 2-3 a week is, probably not too bad but you should stay away from second hand smoke.

yes secondhand smoking is very much worse than smokeing ,but yet you need friends here is an sugestion when your at a resturant try to sit on the side where the vent is or even better sit near the outer edge of the table close to the walking area and not close to the wall this way if you need to get up once in a while you can. also ask nicely if they cannot blow thier smoke in a drection than you as it bothers me, hope this can help you out. but loseing friends over this is not good.

Only thing I can tell you is that I had 6 employees who did not smoke but who developed cancer. All 6 of the spouses were heavy smokers.. and None of the smoking spoused developed cancer.... I personally think second had smoke caused these people to have cancer... and I believe that in some cases the secondary smoke has a worse affect on others than on those doing the smoking.. well when it comes to cancer... that is..