Passive or second-hand smokers are 20 to 25 per cent likely to contract cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, Dr kinglsey Osagie, a lung specialist with the National Hospital Abuja, has warned.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), second-hand smoke refers to the smoke that found in restaurants, offices, and, or other enclosed spaces where people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis, and water pipes.

Osagie told reporters  in Abuja on Monday that tobacco smoke contained more than 4,000 chemicals of which at least 250 were known to be harmful with more than 50 of them known to cause cancer of the lungs.

The doctor, therefore, said that passive smokers could not be less affected by the cigarette smoke than the smoker himself or herself.

He called on the Federal Government to implement the law against smoking in public places in all states of the federation.

“Passive smokers are not in any way less affected than the smokers themselves. So they are also liable to about 25 per cent to 30 percent to what the smoker are liable to. In fact   in some cases, when the husband is smoking the wife that is not smoking may end up with lung cancer and the hubby smoking is still going and counting year.

“So it is so important that we control this passive smoking thing and that brings us to the law against smoking in public. I think this should be re-examined and properly implemented.

“That law banning smoking in public places should be revisited and properly implement to save the young people, not too young, the pregnant women, not pregnant woman from the consequences of cigarettes smoking.

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