Smoking bans have no effect on heart attack rates.

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A recently released study by researchers from the Rand Corporation, the Congressional Budget Office, the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University, "CHANGES IN U.S. HOSPITALIZATION AND MORTALITY RATES FOLLOWING SMOKING BANS", finds that smoking bans had no effect on hospitalizaton, heart attack or mortality rates in communities that impose them. The researchers found that heart attack rates naturally fluctuate from year to year. Smoking bans had no influence on the fluctuation!

A study to be released soon by smoking ban activist Stanton Glantz claims otherwise. But these researchers found that the studies which compose Glantz's meta analysis were the result of researchers cherry picking the towns studied so that a dip in the heart attack rate followed a smoking ban.