Smoke does not get in their eyes (or their lungs)

Three years after Pueblo, Colo., passed a law banning smoking in private workplaces and public places, heart attacks among city residents fell by an impressive 41%.

The study in today's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the 10th to associate no-smoking laws with reductions in heart attack rates. But unlike previous studies, it examined the health effects of the ordinance beyond the first year of implementation.

Not only were the health improvements sustained, heart attack rates dropped even more after three years than after one.

In the 18 months before July 1, 2003, when the smoke-free ordinance went into effect, Pueblo residents suffered heart attacks at the rate of 257 per 100,000 person-years. Eighteen months later, the rate had dropped to 187, and by June 30, 2006, to 152 heart attacks per 100,000 person-years.

The study compared Pueblo's heart attack rates with two similar areas that did not have smoking bans. Over the same time period, the two control groups showed no significant changes in heart attack rates.

Smoke-free ordinances are designed primarily to protect nonsmokers from second-hand smoke; animal and human studies have shown that even relatively small doses of tobacco smoke can increase the risk of heart disease. But because the study did not look at whether heart-attack victims were smokers or nonsmokers, it's impossible to say how much of the decline can be attributed to a drop in second-hand smoke exposure among nonsmokers and how much to a drop in smoking among smokers.

Either way, Pueblo's smoking ban can take the credit: In addition to reducing second-hand smoke, such laws have been shown to prompt smoking bans in private homes and to encourage some smokers to quit.

--Mary Engel

Comments

[Barry Homan]

There is no danger from second-hand smoke. The babyboom period produced a billion kids exposed to SHS everywhere they went: in homes, yards, playgrounds, shopping areas, grocery stores, in post offices and banks; in cars, buses, planes, trains and taxis.

There were smokers in barber shops, drugstores, diners, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, waiting rooms; lobbies, airports, vacation spots; at summer camps, swimming pools, bowling alleys, beaches, parks, and all the ball games ...

...at adult gatherings, church events, parties; smoke from neighbors and visitors, aunts, uncles, and grandparents; smoke from maids, babysitters, and older siblings – even coaches, teachers, scout leaders and den mothers.

It was widespread exposure to SMS, and it was every day of their lives.

According to the modern-day whiners (think of the children!) none of these kids should have made it past the crib. Actually they managed quite well, they even got through the massive drug scene of the 60s and 70s – with smokers around them all the time, for decades.

So who’s kidding whom?

One billion people in China, and children are exposed to much more smoking there than you ever saw in America, and they don’t die; they don’t get sick, there is no epidemic or threat, simply because there are no ASHoles, no agendas, and no money trails; no Banzhafs, no Glantzes, or Carmonas; no vapid TV ads offering pills for diahroemic paramiestudapidalisis; none of these dreary lifestyles that embrace fear, pharma, and hypochondria.

American society isn’t healthier, the mentality gets sicker every day; it stems from a time when Pharma discovered no more big epidemics coming down the road: no diphtheria, cholera, flu, polio – how to survive, sell Geritol? They came up with a cool idea: what if smokers bought all their nicotine from us instead of Phil Morris? Think of the profits! They called up the lawyers & marketers and draft a future plan: first get Joe Senator to put warnings on cigarette packs, bide our time, then go with plan B; slow process, just raise the bar an inch at a time and cultivate an image: first make smokers look like addicts, then outcasts and lepers; finally like criminals and baby-killers.

I look for where the money’s going.

Because this isn’t about smoking, it was never about smoking.

Smoking has just become a tool in the hands of many.

The writer of this article is probably getting kick-backs from the pharma industry.

***

[Jacob]

If a tobacco company published a study finding that smoking bans don't impact heart attack rates, would you basically just reprint its press release too? No? Then perhaps a little skepticism about the dramatic effects reported in this study is in order too.

[Rob S]

Since freedom seems to have an adverse impact on longevity, perhaps we should pass some more laws like these? It sure is great that the primary concern of our politicans and our people shifed from freedom to health. Now freedom can be curbed in the name of health! Personally I'm glad; most people are far too stupid to be entrusted with their own lives as this issue demonstrates.

[dr-exmedic]

It's also impossible to figure out how much of the drop is due to smokers feeling unwelcome in Pueblo and leaving.

[Gene]

Where do all these commenters come from?? They sure swarm every article on smoking, all across the country--almost as if they have been organized to foment this incredibly idiosyncratic position.

Remember when the old Tobacco Institute always used to have the last word on reports on primary smoking, a tag line in every newspaper article: "Not proven!"

Are online message boards now serving the same function?

Whatever. But I do love to see their awesome displays of logic and scientific rigor. It's so thrilling to read that no kids die in China.

At least here we've been spared all the oh-so-scientifical links to screwball websites.