The law of unintended consequences strikes again

The law of unintended consequences strikes again. The piecemeal approach to
smoking bans has led to an increase in drunk driving fatalities.

Smoking and drinking

Unlucky
<http://www.economist.com/world/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=10966152>
strikes

Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

America's smoking bans are causing fatal accidents

BANNING smoking in public places is supposed to save lives. It encourages
people to smoke less, so they do themselves and those around them less harm.
That, at least, is the theory. Whether it works may depend on how uniform
anti-smoking legislation is.

Although many countries have introduced national bans, America has taken a
piecemeal approach. A number of states, counties and municipalities have
introduced various types of bans, and have enforced them with varying
degrees of rigour.

The problem with this, say Scott Adams and Chad Cotti, economists at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is that smoking bans seem to have been
followed by an increase in drunk-driving and in fatal accidents involving
alcohol. In research published in the Journal of Public Economics, the
authors find evidence that smokers are driving farther to places where
smoking in bars is allowed.

The researchers analysed 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 (equivalent to approximately six deaths).
Furthermore, drunk-driving smokers have not changed their ways over time. In
areas where the ban has been in place for longer than 18 months, the
increased accident rate is 19%.

The findings, say the pair, are consistent with the suggestion that smokers
are driving farther to alternative places to drink. This may be because they
are driving to bars with outdoor seating, or to bars which are not enforcing
the smoking ban.

Another explanation is that some smokers are "jurisdiction shopping" to
places where they may puff. Accident rates can be especially high where
border-hopping to still-smoky bars is possible. Accidents in Delaware county
in Pennsylvania increased by 26% after the next-door state of Delaware
introduced a smoking ban in 2002. Similarly, when Boulder county banned
smoking, fatal accidents in Jefferson county, between Boulder county and
Denver, went up by 40%. How this weighs up against the long-term health
effects of smoking bans is unclear. But it serves as a warning to
well-meaning legislators.