It is often claimed that smoking bans lead to immediate and substantial declines in a variety of health problems in the local area. The logic usually goes something like this:
- A smoking ban is passed
- Wait one year
- Note that hospital admissions for heart attacks declined during that year
- Associate the decline in heart attacks with the smoking ban
- Yeehaw! The ban saved lives!
That (il)logic is annoyingly common. Fortunately, it's easy to counter with this specious reasoning: heart attacks in Nebraska declined a whopping 28.5% in the year following a substantial cut in state funds for the state's anti-tobacco programs. Therefore, it is clear that anti-tobacco programs cause heart attacks. It must be true, the statistics say so. Or better yet, read the problems with this sort of logic for yourself.
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