This one goes out to the nicotine addicts and their apologists:

In one of the largest analyses to date of the dangers of passive smoking, researchers found that smoke-free laws reduced the rate of heart attacks by an average of 17% after one year in communities where the bans had been adopted. The benefit increased with time: After three years, the rate had dropped about 26%. The biggest declines in heart attacks were seen among non-smokers and people between the ages of 40 and 60 years.... While smoking tobacco is known to heighten risk of heart attacks over a lifetime, there is some evidence that even short exposure to second-hand smoke can raise the risk of heart attacks. It can increase blood pressure, cause blood platelets to become sticky and injure cells that line the interior walls of blood vessels—all factors that can promote heart attacks.

One physician who has seen first-hand the effects of second-hand smoke on heart attack rates is Richard P. Sargent, a family doctor in Helena. He and some colleagues noticed a sharp drop in heart-attack admissions at the city's main hospital about three months after a ban against smoking in bars, restaurants and casinos went into effect in June 2002. Then in December of that year, opponents succeeded in getting the ban revoked. "We performed an ideal experiment," Dr. Sargent recalls. "We turned [the ban] on, and we watched the heart-attack rate go down. We turned it off and watched it go back up."