16 October 2009

Smoking Bans Save Lives

Bans on smoking in public and in workplaces can sharply reduce the number of heart attacks among both smokers and nonsmokers, according to a report issued Thursday by the Institute of Medicine. . . . Nearly 440,000 Americans die each year from smoking-related illnesses — more than one-third from heart disease — according to the heart association. About 38,000 of those deaths are related to secondhand smoke, which has many characteristics of other types of air pollution linked to heart disease. . . . The panel examined 11 studies of heart attacks in areas where bans were implemented and found a decrease in heart attacks in every study, ranging from a low of 6 percent to a high of 47 percent, depending on how the study was conducted.

"Such consistent data confirms for the committee that smoking bans do, in fact, decrease the rate of heart attacks," they wrote. One study, for example, found that hospitalizations for heart attacks in Pueblo dropped 41 percent in the three years after the city banned smoking in the workplace. In most of the studies, it was difficult to isolate the benefits for nonsmokers from those for smokers, but two of the studies showed a very clear benefit for nonsmokers. The committee also surveyed the evidence from laboratory studies in animals and concluded that these results supported bans.

From here.

Even a couple thousand lives associated with a low end estimate of the benefits and applied to second hand smoke recipients only overwhelmingly justifies the smoking ban. The actual number of lives saved is probably in the tens of thousands of lives per year. This is a benefit comparable in scale to entirley ending homicide.


Anonymous said...

Smoking bans and the heart attack fraud.


Dave Barnes said...

Smoking bans DELAY deaths.
And, increase the overall cost of medical care to society.

Anonymous said...

SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at:


concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers.....

meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.


Jude said...

As one who is allergic to smoke, I can tell you that smoking bans overall make me much happier. In the 1970s, there were no non-smoking sections anywhere. More people smoked, and they smoked pretty much anywhere they wanted. Although some asked the question, "Do you mind if I smoke?" they were always offended if you said, "Yes, I mind." Now people are advocating for the probably inevitable freedom from punitive marijuana laws. Since marijuana smoke always bothered me more than regular cigarette smoke, I find this movement annoying. Smoking bans improve *my* ability to breathe.