There are plenty of moral debates about smoking bans, but one of the biggest questions is empirical: Can bans save lives? The answer is yes, but not in the way most people would think, according Jacob Sullum, a senior editor for the libertarian magazine Reason."I think, to the extent that they discourage people from smoking, they might have an effect on smoking-related deaths," said Sullum, author of the anti-regulation books For Your Own Good and Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use. "The main goal is not to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke, but to encourage smokers to quit - it just makes it much more difficult to maintain a cigarette habit."
But what about the ban in Helena, Montana, which reportedly reduced heart attacks by 58 percent? Many anti-smoking groups have attributed this to a decrease in second-hand smoke - the New York Times recently ran a high-profile opinion piece on its success.
"It's purely a load of crap. It's totally incredible," said Sullum. "Say you accept the estimate, questionable in itself, that about 5 percent of deaths from heart disease are because of second-hand smoke. It seems reasonable to assume that about five percent of heart attacks would also be caused by it."
For Sullum, the numbers don't add up: Even if everyone completely stopped smoking immediately (though smoking in the home was left unregulated), and the effects of smoking immediately vanished from their bodies (the most dramatic improvement for ex-smokers is, in fact, during the first two months), various estimates would only put the expected drop between 20 and 30 percent.
"Another way of looking at it is, with a 60 percent decrease, what would that tell us about an increase?" he said. If taking away smoke decreases one's risk of heart disease by about 60 percent, introducing smoke would have to increase one's risk by about 150 percent.
Factoring in that smoking was not eliminated from homes, this number would have to be even higher, according to Sullum. "Keep in mind, the risk of heart disease for smokers is two times (100 percent) greater than that for non-smokers," he said.
"They're implying that second-hand smoke more than doubles your risk, then immediately disappears - that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than smoking."
Finally, Sullum finds a problem in Helena's sample size. "These (Helena heart attacks over six-month periods) are real tiny numbers," he said. "They range from one to 13, and they're highly variable."
Cities with larger populations have not seen such a drop-off when they passed smoking bans, he said, mentioning New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
"If there's a decrease anything like what they're saying, it should be obvious with numbers that big," Sullum said.
