The unanimous decision by California's Air Resources Board opens the way for more restrictions on cigarette smoking in a state which has led the crackdown on smoking in the US and around the world.
Board members said they took the decision based on new research showing that young women exposed to second hand smoke were 68 per cent to 120 per cent more vulnerable to breast cancer.
That report in September by California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment drew on more than 1,000 other studies on the effects of passive smoke and estimated that secondhand smoke accounted for 4,000 deaths each year in California from lung cancer or heart disease.
'There is no question that this puts California way ahead,' said John Froines, chairman of the Air Resources Board's Scientific Review Panel.
'To actually have the major air pollution agency in the state of California to list ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) as a toxic air contaminant is going to have immense impact, we think, in terms of public education around other states,' he said. 'It will clearly lead to regulatory changes within the state.'
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