A study from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education says that smoking bans quickly and drastically cut the number of people hospitalized for heart attacks, strokes and respiratory diseases (October 29).
The researchers, based at the University of California, found that heart attack hospitalizations alone fell an average of 15%, following community-wide bans on smoking in areas like restaurants, bars and workplaces. In one county in Minnesota, heart attack hospitalizations dropped by one-third, following new smoking ordinances.
"If politicians are serious about cutting medical costs, they need to look at this," Staton Glantz, lead author of the study told USA Today. "The best way to keep health care costs down is to not get sick . . . There is nothing else you can do to have these big an effect on hospital admissions."
According to the American Nonsmokers Rights foundation, roughly 3,600 municipalities have laws restricting smoking in certain areas.
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