Lower smoking rates, lives saved, no loss of trade: NY Mayor hails smokefree policies

Excerpts from New York City Mayor Bloomberg's speech to health leaders, 14/6/06:

"Not quite four years ago, I introduced our city's pioneering Smoke-Free Air Act, banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Its premise, supported by testimony from a Nobel Prize winner and former head of the National Institutes of Health, Doctor Harold Varmus, was that waiters and bartenders should not be forced to risk their health because of second-hand smoke in order to earn a living.

"We clearly had the facts on our side-and perhaps for that reason, we were met with a massive and well-financed scare campaign predicting doom for our city's tourism and hospitality industry if our efforts succeeded. I remember with particular clarity the dire forecast that prohibiting smoking in bars and restaurants would mean that no one from Italy or Ireland would ever visit New York City again. That has not only proved to be completely wrong; both Italy and Ireland are among more than a dozen nations that have subsequently followed New York City's lead, and banned smoking in public places. So have dozens of cities and states here in the U.S., from New Jersey to Montana.

".... And it gives me enormous satisfaction to report that because of all our efforts, today nearly 200,000 fewer New Yorkers smoke than did four years ago - although keeping that trend going is somewhat problematic and shows how important the tenacity I mentioned earlier is. Epidemiology tells us that this will prevent at least 60,000 premature deaths. And replication of these initiatives, nationally and internationally-perhaps accelerated by New York City's example-very likely will have a lifesaving impact many times greater than that."