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• Pueblo smoking ban leads to drop in heart attacks, study finds 

Heart attacks fell sharply in Pueblo in the years after a city smoking ban took effect, according to a report released Wednesday, and researchers say it's the strongest link yet between such laws and improved health.

The southern Colorado city saw a 41 percent drop in heart attack hospitalization rates among city residents in the three years after a smoking ban took effect July 1, 2003, according to the report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The size of the drop surprised researchers, said the study's lead researcher, Terry Pechacek, associate director for science at the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

"The significant continued decline was not predicted," he said. Several studies have shown that heart attacks decrease significantly when smoke-free laws are in place, but this was the first to show that such declines seem to continue over time.

Pechacek said it suggests that the risk of secondhand smoke might be underestimated, and that Colorado's smoking ban, which took effect July 1, 2006, can only go so far in protecting people.

"Even with the statewide law, people need to recognize that they need to pay attention to secondhand smoke in homes, vehicles and everywhere else," he said. . . .

"This study is very dramatic," said Dr. Michael Thun, a researcher with the American Cancer Society who was not involved in the CDC study. "This is now the ninth study, so it is clear that smoke-free laws are one of the most effective and cost-effective to reduce heart attacks." . . .

"I have never seen any proof at all that secondhand smoke is hazardous to anybody's health," said Bruce Hicks, owner of Murray Street Darts, who has been fighting the ban in court after being cited for openly defying it. "And besides that, I still think it's a business rights issue rather than a health issue."

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