Following the implementation of the ban, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality was observed (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76–0.99).
Boom. Take that, sceptics!
Mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking.
Blimey. No quibbling about correlation and causation for these folks.
Who are these folks, anyway? Step forward Luke Clancy, currently of the Tobacco Free Research Institute, previously the chairman of ASH Ireland and the lead figure in the smoking ban campaign back in 2003. What better man to mark his own homework?
Let's return to that extraordinary claim...
Following the implementation of the ban, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality was observed (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76–0.99).
What does "immediate" mean here? Overnight? Within a month? A year? The authors do not tell us, but they also—quite rightly—look at diseases which they don't think are caused by passive smoking (a small and dwindling category) to use as a control.
In contrast, an immediate 15% decrease was observed for non-smoking related mortality (RR: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.75–0.97)
Doesn't that undermine the central claim?
...followed by a 5% increase each post-ban year (RR: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.02– 1.08).
Phew! That's alright then.
For ages 35–64 years, an immediate post-ban decrease in all-cause mortality was observed (RR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.67–0.93)
Huzzah! So the smoking ban saved lives in the 35-64 age group then?
...followed by annual trend increases in all-cause mortality (RR: 1.06; 95%: 1.02–1.10), resulting in a net post-ban increase of 2%.
Maybe not. It seems that if you weren't a pensioner, the smoking ban was bad for your health (if, like Clancy et al., we assume that correlation = causation).
Of course, it is mainly pensioners who die of cancer, heart disease, stroke etc., even if it is mainly younger people who go to pubs and workplaces, and we know that all-cause mortality has been declining for years (see top blue line).
The graph below, also published by Ireland's Department of Health, tells much the same story but brings us up to 2011...
The Irish smoking ban was introduced in March 2004. Can you spot the dramatic decline in mortality around 2004-05? To me, it looks very much the existing downward trend continued and, if anything, slowed down in the post-ban period.
In the end, Clancy et al.
In the absence of a national smoking ban, an estimated 3,726 (95% CI: 2,305–4,629) additional smoking-related deaths would have occurred.
With that bit of 'science' completed all that remains is to type out the study, issue the press release and wait for the media to announce...
Smoking ban saves 3,700 lives thanks to cleaner air
All in a day's work for tobacco control.
