January 01, 2009 06:12 PM UTC

Saving Colorado lives, one puff at a time

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• by: DavidThi808

from the Boulder Daily Camera

A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations within three years, a sign of just how serious a health threat secondhand smoke is, government researchers said Wednesday.

If someone wants to smoke themselves – go crazy. Ruin your health, have trouble breathing from moderate exercise, get cancer – that’s all your choice.

But killing others with you, call me a nanny state proponent but I think we should not allow people to kill those around them.

In the new study, researchers reviewed hospital admissions for heart attacks in Pueblo. Patients were classified by ZIP codes. They then looked at the same data for two nearby areas that did not have bans — the area of Pueblo County outside the city and for El Paso County.

In Pueblo, the rate of heart attacks dropped from 257 per 100,000 people before the ban to 152 per 100,000 in the three years afterward. There were no significant changes in the two other areas.

105 people are alive today who would otherwise be dead due to the actions of the Pueblo City government. Major kudos to them.

As to our state legislature, and the City Council in the rest of our cities, it’s illegal to fire a gun in the air because the bullet comes back down and can kill someone when it does. How is letting someone light up any different from that?

This is one of those places where the legislation not only costs nothing, but saves money in reduced medical costs, which are borne by all of us. Lives saved, lower costs, what’s not to like…

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