'No smoking' town where heart attacks halved

The case of the smoke-free town is now going to the supreme court.

Last year, the local authorities in the isolated community of Helena, Montana, USA banned smoking in all public places. Six months later, the ban was lifted by the state legislature under pressure from the tobacco industry. Now the Montana Supreme Court has been asked to test the validity of such bans once and for all.

Interesting but what's it got to do with male health?

The answer is that during the six months of the ban, heart attack rates in Helena fell by more than half (58%) and that once the ban was lifted they rocketed up again.

Critics and the tobacco industry have questioned these stunning findings because similar effects have not been noticed in other places that have banned smoking. However, Helena is close to the perfect place for such a test. There is just one cardiac care hospital within a 60 mile radius so the statistics are far easier to gather and not distorted by the sort of population mobility you'd find in less isolated cities.

Supporters have argued that the instant danger of lighting up — rather than the better understood long-term risks — to both the smoker and those around them has never been better illustrated. Smoke and second-hand smoke can kill immediately. Experts say that wiithin half an hour of exposure to passive smoking, blood starts to thicken making clotting and therefore heart attacks more likely.

Dr. Richard Sargent, who studied the Helena phenomena at the University of California, points out that eight hours of working in a smoky bar is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, that workers in such an environment more than double their chances of developing cancer and asthma, and pregnant workers put themselves at risk for miscarriage and premature delivery.

What do you think? Smoking bans all round?