Positive impact of smoking ban

New US report highlights impact on health

The effect of reducing second-hand smoke exposure has been highlighted by a new report from the Institute of Medicine in the United States. The report reviewed 11 major studies of the effects of smoking bans in parts of the United States, Canada, Italy and Scotland, and found a decrease in the number of heart attacks ranging from 6 per cent to 47 per cent. In particular, two of the studies — one in Monroe, Indiana, and another in Scotland (and a 52-country study of second-hand smoke’s impact) — looked at the ban’s effect specifically on non-smokers, not just smokers who are being made to reduce their intake.

The report should bolster calls for extending smoking bans, which can face opposition from business owners who worry about the reaction of smoking customers or employees. But over 126 million non-smokers in the US are regularly exposed to someone else’s smoke, and there is no safe level of exposure – the report even cites ‘compelling’ but circumstantial evidence that as little as an hour’s exposure might be enough to push someone already at risk of a heart attack over the edge.

The results surprised some members of the IOM committee, who had been initially sceptical of the positive effects of a ban – Stephen Feinberg (Carnegie Mellon University), for example, says that he is ‘the resident skeptic’, and changed his mind: ‘There was a clear and consistent effect of smoking bans.’

Source: Associated Press, 16 October 2009.

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