TARLBORO COUNTRY, U.S.A. - Just how harmful is secondhand smoke? This has been one of the most lop-sided public health debates of the early 21st century, but a new study suggests that passing laws to curb secondhand smoke can yield a big payoff - a drop in heart attack rates for uptight non-smokers.
Overall, non-smokers in American, Canadian, and European cities with public smoking bans had an average of 25 percent fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities still forced to tolerate the foul habit of their neighbors.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Smoking Butts, found that 20 to 30 percent of non-smokers are likely to get bent out of shape if they see someone lighting up in public in their vicinity, leaving them at far greater risk for heart attacks.
That number rises to nearly 50% for non-smokers who blow a gasket when they see a smoker flicking a butt away, an act that can result in heart palpitations almost immediately, says Dr. Nicoretta Jones of the University of Winston-Salem School of Tobacco Related Behaviors.
"We can see physiological changes well within a minute," she said. "Basically, exposure to smokers makes some people just lose it. That can lead to cardiac arrest, but it's happening less and less.
"We're encouraged by these falling numbers," said Jones. "The cigarette ban seems to be working."
Many experts predict the next cigarette tax hike will completely wipe out smoking for good; the few remaining smokers at that time are expected to suffer cardiac arrest themselves at the prospect of a $15 pack of smokes.
Nevertheless, some have noted that as long as there is still someone willing to walk a mile for a camel, there will probably be someone willing to pay a dollar for one, too.
But not me. I know when to say enough is enough.
...about twenty years ago or so.
