This is probably one of the most interesting stories I have read in a while. Obviously, everyone knows that there have been massive amounts of legislation being passed that ban smoking in public places and restaurants. The idea is that it would save lives of those second hand smokers. Well this from The Economist:
“The problem with this… is that smoking bans seem to have been followed by an increase in drunk-driving and fatal accidents involving alcohol.”
This is believed to be happening because people who are smokers are driving longer distances to smoker friendly bars.
“The researchers analyzed data from 120 American counties, 20 of which had banned smoking. They found a smoking ban increased fatal alcohol-related car accidents by 13% in a typical county containing 680,000 people. This is the equivalent of 2.5 fatal accidents.”
They seem to find more where border hopping can be done easily. Obviously, the legislators have caused unintended consequences like most things. This one is massively stupid. Businesses should decide when smoking should be banned from their restaurants. If you don’t like smoke, go to a different restaurant. People who love these bans, explain to me do you think the nanny state needs to tell the owners when to cut off smoking?
~PCCapitalist
The Public Choice Capitalist 
This statistic is pretty interesting. When it comes to smoking bans, I think we should differentiate between private and government places. I say this because while individuals can choose what private owned places they do business, they cannot choose which government offices to visit.
great post!
Actually, smoking bans kill people in other ways too. Quite aside from the individual rapes, muggings, and killings that take place when individuals are forced out into back alleyways to smoke on work breaks, there’s the economic impact to consider. Visit:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/economic.html
to see the sort of economic impact bans have when they’re examined by sources not dependent on Big Tobacco money laundered through antismoking organizations and then consider the effect of that impact upon the health of the families of affected workers.
Dave Kuneman, Research Director of the Smokers Club has compared the deaths caused by the economic effects of bans to those supposedly caused by ETS before the bans and found that EVEN IF you accept the antismokers’ claims about the “deadliness” of secondary smoke that far more people die from the economic fallout of smoking bans.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub.com/130.html