One year ago, Illinois' clean indoor air law took effect. As a kind of
anniversary present, a new study published this week points to why it was a
good idea: Clean air laws substantially reduce the risk of certain kinds of
heart attacks, according to the study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

 

Missouri, take note.

 

Illinois' law bans smoking in all public places. That's good for the health of
smokers and non-smokers alike. It's already known that exposure to second-hand
tobacco smoke can cause or exacerbate heart disease. It increases the risk of
blood clots that can cause heart attacks and causes inflammation in arteries
that can reduce the flow of blood to the heart -- two proven causes of heart
attacks.

 

Now the new CDC study gets more specific: Laws that prevent smoking in public
places significantly reduce the number of people hospitalized with a heart
attack called an acute myocardial infarction.

 

The study compared hospitalization rates for heart attacks in Pueblo, Colo.,
which passed a clean indoor air law in 2003, with those in two neighboring
counties without the laws.

 

Over a three-year period, the rate of heart attack hospitalizations in Pueblo
dropped by 41 percent from what it was before the law took effect. Rates in the
neighboring communities remained unchanged.

 

The new study is significant because it measured continued declines in heart
attack rates over a longer period of time than ever before. But the results
hardly were unique. Eight previous studies have shown lower rates of heart
attacks in communities that passed laws protecting the rights of non-smokers to
breathe clean air indoors.

 

A 2003 study in Helena, Mont., found the number of heart attacks dropped by 40
percent after an indoor smoking prohibition went into effect in 2002. Again,
there was no similar decline in surrounding areas that had no clean indoor air
laws.

 

Unfortunately, after a legal challenge funded largely by tobacco groups, a
judge later struck down Helena's indoor smoking ban and efforts to pass a new
one failed.

 

Evidence that preventing smoking in public places pays quick dividends by
reducing the number of heart attacks won't satisfy everyone. Tobacco
industry-funded groups launched public relations campaigns against previous
studies -- just as similar groups funded by Big Tobacco have responded to every
major report on the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke.

But those PR campaigns are just blowing smoke.

 

Missouri should enact a law modeled on the one in Illinois. Even with the
state's high rates of smoking, most Missourians don't use tobacco. Their health
shouldn't be put at risk by the minority of Missourians who smoke.

 

St. Louis and St. Louis County, where a proposed clean-indoor air ordinance
failed two years ago, should lead the way.