A new study shows that New Orleans's ban on smoking in public places including bars and casinos has had a dramatic impact on the number of smoking-related deaths in Orleans Parish over the last 10 years.
Dr. Donna Williams with LSU Health New Orleans says her research team expected to see a decrease in smoking-related deaths, especially those resulting from lung cancer.
"Because what (the laws) do is they remove a lot of the second-hand smoke as well as giving people a little bit of a nudge to people who have been thinking about quitting because it's getting more difficult for them to smoke in public, and they're uncomfortable when they can't smoke," Dr. Williams said. "So, it's giving them that little nudge that they need."
According to Dr. Williams, the city's lung cancer rates began to decrease when the Louisiana Legislature approved the state's ban on smoking in public venues in 2007. However, she says the city's 2015 ordinance prohibiting smoking inside bars and casinos further drove down lung cancer rates.
"This dramatic shift that was brought about, we can't attribute it to anything else to this point in time when they were pushing for complete smoke free ordinances," Dr. Williams said. "We weren't really surprised to see, but we're happy to see that lung cancer rates have decreased at a much greater rate in New Orleans than in the rest of the state."
Dr. Williams told WWL's Tommy Tucker that the results speak volumes about the effectiveness of anti-smoking laws on public health.
"That tells us these ordinances work," Dr. Williams said.
