According to a new NBER Working Paper, “Changes in U.S. Hospitalization and Mortality Rates Following Smoking Bans,”
We find no evidence that legislated U.S. smoking bans were associated with short‐term reductions in hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction or other diseases in the elderly, children or working‐age adults.
State Reps. Holliman, Weiss, Glazier, and Barnhart are the main sponsors of a bill (HB 2) that would prohibit smoking in public and in workplaces. The latest version of the bill makes a pretty bold claim, “The General Assembly finds that secondhand smoke has been proven to cause cancer, heart disease, and asthma attacks in both smokers and nonsmokers.” I suppose they would argue that the “science is settled.”
