Heart attacks decline after smoking ban: study
DALLAS (Reuters) - A Colorado city ban on smoking at workplaces and in public buildings may have sparked a steep decline in heart attacks, researchers reported on Monday. In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took effect in Pueblo in 2003, hospital admissions for heart attacks for city residents dropped 27 percent, according to the study led by Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.
OK, so yesterday, I managed to start yet another (albeit very minor and reasonably civil) flame war on the subject of banning smoking in public places. It’s a subject about which I have very strong feelings, which I am certainly not going to apologize for. Yes, my right to breather clean air DOES trump your right to smoke and pollute that air…and if you can’t accept that reality and you insist on lighting up, we’re going to have issues. You may not like it, and you may think me unreasonable, but I quite frankly don’t much care. You have no right to force the byporduct of your addiction on me. Period. End of story.
There isn’t much that I can truly be described as being “militant” about, but smoking is at the top of the list. Cigarette smoke does not respect boundaries, and second-hand smoke is quickly becoming widely recognized as a significant health threat. I can only wonder what might have been happening to me all those years I was forced to inhale my father’s cigarette smoke. I had no say in the matter, and yet I was essentlally forced to be a de facto smoker.
Now comes a study that lends at least a little bit of credence to the argument that second-hand smoke is not the benign, harmless byproduct of cigarette combustion that Big Tobacco and it’s apologists would have us believe.
“Heart attack hospitalizations did not change significantly for residents of surrounding Pueblo County or in the comparison city of Colorado Springs, neither of which have non-smoking ordinances,” said the American Heart Association, which published the study in its journal Circulation.
The association said this was further evidence of the damage wrought by secondhand smoke.
“The decline in the number of heart attack hospitalizations within the first year and a half after the non-smoking ban that was observed in this study is most likely due to a decrease in the effect of secondhand smoke as a triggering factor for heart attacks,” it said.
So you think that this is not a significant development? Sure, it’s a relatively small study, but not significant? Try telling that to the families and loved ones of the estimated 35,000 nonsmokers killed by second-hand smoke every year. The reality is the smoking bans work, and more and wider bans will only benefit public health. No, I’m not going to advocate an outright ban on smoking, though I certainly wouldn’t be shedding any tears over such a ban. Nonetheless, banning smoking in public places is not only a good idea, it’s an excellent way to reduce the risks associated with second-hand smoke for the greatest number of Americans.
If we care at all about public health, banning smoking in public places is a must…and it’s the right thing to do.
Maybe you're right Jack. 108 Fewer heart attacks over 18 months is significant and apparently for many, is proof positive that social engineering works.
Since heart attacks can also be caused by a diet containing too much salt and saturated fat, perhaps we should fix that next, and we can tackle it the same way we did smoking.
First, lets ban fast food TV advertising. With the quality of High Def TV these days, those beefy
Big Macs and mouth watering Whoppers might look too hard to resist. At the very least, we certainly shouldn't allow kids to be subjected to advertising from the evil big food industry. Yes, a little regulation of free speech is required, but hey, it's worth it. The ends justify the means, right?
When we buy into the notion that the state should engage in high degrees of social engineering, we sell out some rights and we don't get them back. Some see this as a good trade. I don't.
@Bob
Just curious... What is your opinion on the Bush administration's decision to wiretap citizen's and a women's right to choose to have an abortion?
I recently learned something.... Did you know that in europe it is ILLEGAL for food companies to use cartoon characters to advertise their products to kids? I was stunned. The logical result of such a ban is preventing corporations from using the 'whine -factor' to induce parents of children, whom should otherwise know better, to buy nutritionally suspect foods for their children.
I thought about this for a long time. Invariably it all comes down to the right of a corporation to market their product and the duty of a government to protect its people from possibly harmful products.
As a father of four children, on occasion I sit with them to watch programming on Nick Jr. or the Disney channel. During the commercials I am STUNNED by the amount of GARBAGE that's marketed at my 3.5 year old boy. I now understand where his requests are coming from! As the parent I have the final say what goes into his mouth and I like to think that I'm pretty good at making wholesome choices for him.
In the end personal responsibilty is paramount in a free society wouldn't you say? Unfortunately we live in an age where it seems no one wants to take responsibilty for their actions or inactions anymore. We all want to blame some one else. interestingly, Republicans want to blame immigrants, illegal or legal, islamo-fascists, activist judges and non-evangelical christians for everything that's wrong. But they give only lip service to responsibilty.
Conversely, Democrats lately want to protect everyone through legislation. Evidently, they feel the public is incapable of responsibility.
Now I certainly don't fall on the side of the Republicans, their knee-jerk, us vs. them mentality is simply the other side of the same coin that Islamic fundamentalists are on. If we as a people don't wake up and realize what's happening....we'll be plunged into a darkness far worse than the time between the Fall of Rome and the European Rennaisance...courtesy of runaway corporate greed and plain old FEAR!
But I can't whole-heartedly get behind the Democrats side of activist-government.
The bottom line is this: In the end we are responsible for ourselves and our children. We have to set the example through responsible actions and choices. A person should CHOOSE not to light-up in a public resturant or bar because it is a detriment to the other patrons. Why must common courtesy be legislated!? Why? Because we live in a society that does not believe in personal responsibility! Personal Freedom...oh they are all for that! Should a corporation be free to polute the air, water and soil because we live in a free society? I think not! Were's the responsibilty to the future generations?
50 years ago the hazards of tabacco were not proven. They are now! So to willfully and knowingly engage in an activity in a public place we SHARE with other members of society that's hazardous to those other members is IRRESPONSIBLE! Much the same way that drinking too much a getting behind the wheel of an automobile.
The implication here is the TOTAL FREEDOM requires TOTAL RESPONSIBILTY. The Democratic view is that the 'sheople' need to have responsibilty legislated because they won't take responsibilty on their own. This tells me we are still a child-race. Too stupid to see or unwilling to look at what's best for us. So the elite take it upon themselves to protect one person from the irresponsibilty of another.
GREAT FREEDOM ENTAILS GREAT RESPONSIBILTY!
Thanks for asking, Ray. A person's body is their property, just as a restaurant or bar is the property of its owner. Government interference with either is inappropriate for the same reasons -- property rights and personal freedom. Basically, it's none of their business. More here...
(...had to split this into two posts becuase MT3.2 limits me to one link.)
I think the warrantless monitoring of international communications has been overly politicized. In the inappropriate search and seizure department, I'm far more concerned about war on drugs than the war on terror.
Right on, Jack! Cigarette smoke is a unique issue because it does NOT respect boundaries. If some idiot wants to eat junk food, shoot heroin, or ride a motorcycle without a helmet, that really only affects them. But someone else's cigarette smoke affects EVERYONE around them. Don't we breathers have rights too?
I'm with you on this one, Northstar.
I'm not exactly an old hippie (yet) but I think medical marijuana ought to be legal, and like tomatoes, it's better if you grow your own.
Not only can you control the amount of artificial crap used to make the plant, you get a higher-quality product.
(Yeah, I grow tomatoes. As it happens, my allergies include cannabinoids as well as tobacco. Sue me. I can't have the stuff so I don't produce the stuff, but AFAIK if everybody could have legally grow / possess, just enough for his/her own needs, the drug war -- and its attendant, obscene profits, 'cause really, the only thing you can make more money out of than oil is dope -- would become irrelevant.)
NPR's been carrying stories lately that scare me. The stories are about marijuana patches in the national parks (and state and some muni parks too). What scares me isn't that crooks do this or even that they shoot people who get too close; that's a risk you take walking out your door in a world where the idiot squatting across the street may be cooking meth in the bathroom of a garage apartment. What scares me is the costs of cleaning up after it -- it's one more thing the Park Service hasn't got the money for, and one more incentive to lease/sell the parklands for development. With Bush in the White House, the need for another incentive is infinitesimal already.
No-knock raids OUGHT to be illegal, because they're sure as God made little green apples unconstitutional (and I used to be a cop).
Snitches aren't called that for their sterling integrity, and the increasing overmilitarization of our local PDs to mount "drug war response" is being seen by eyes other (therefore less paranoid) than mine as a threat to civil liberties generally.
The "us vs. them" mindset is everywhere; you don't even have to be brown or Buddhist to be one of "them" anymore.
Right on, Jack! Cigarette smoke is a unique issue because it does NOT respect boundaries. If some idiot wants to eat junk food, shoot heroin, or ride a motorcycle without a helmet, that really only affects them. But someone elseís cigarette smoke affects EVERYONE around them. Donít we breathers have rights too?
Yes, you do have rights, thanks for asking. You have the right to avoid places you don't own where you know smoking is allowed.
But it's more fun to make the government responsible for your decisions, right?