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Department of Unintended Consequences, a continuing series
A rigorous statistical examination has found that smoking bans increase drunken-driving fatalities. One might expect that a ban on smoking in bars would deter some people from showing up, thereby reducing the number of people driving home drunk. But jurisdictions with smoking bans often border jurisdictions without bans, and some bars may skirt the ban, so that smokers can bypass the ban with extra driving. There is also a large overlap between the smoker and alcoholic populations, which would exacerbate the danger from extra driving. The authors estimate that smoking bans increase fatal drunken-driving accidents by about 13 percent, or about 2.5 such accidents per year for a typical county.
That's coming out in the Journal of Public Economics, so it might even be true. Here is the short source article, which surveys other interesting results as well; worth a read.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 12, 2008 at 07:26 AM in Law | Permalink
Comments
If stopping drunken driving fatalities was a good idea _regardless of cost_, we wouldn't have bars at all, would we?
And where are all the papers that add up the benefits as well as the costs of smoking bans? Most of the smokers and ex-smokers I talk to prefer the less smoky bars and reduced drycleaning bills, and it's opened up a lot of restaurant choices for families and people with asthma.
Posted by: DK at Feb 12, 2008 8:25:47 AM
Sounds like a good reason to institute a national smoking ban, thus eliminating adjoining jurisdictions with non-contiguous smoking laws (with the exception of national borders, of course).
Posted by: Ben at Feb 12, 2008 8:31:34 AM
I was going to say that this report only gives the nanny-staters more impetus to outlaw smoking everywhere, but I didn't realize one of them would beat me to the punch on the second post.
Ben: why stop at national borders? Isn't your plight to save mankind from pleasure more important that trifling things like sovereignty?
Posted by: bartman at Feb 12, 2008 8:39:10 AM
I didn't even notice the introduction of smoking bans, because I don't patronize bars or the sort of restaurants that are smoke-filled.
I don't think people really argue for smoking bans on a welfare-increasing basis, do they? It seems to me its more that people simply don't care about the enjoyment some people get from smoking. Smokers are generally demonized more than many other groups, so no one cares if they pay a price so others can benefit any more than the public cares about a white supremacist's complaints on being forced by the law to hire blacks. 80% of the population doesn't care about a shrinking 20% who they likely consider "unclean".
Smoking has been on the decline for a while anyway, I'd bet mostly due to social pressures.
Posted by: Grant at Feb 12, 2008 9:02:38 AM
There doesn't need to be legislation. In Charlotte (this is in NC, see here http://www.agr.state.nc.us/markets/commodit/horticul/tobacco/) there are some restaurants/bars that have gone to no smoking. One is Cheddar's, which is basically an ABCTGIF type restaurant (Applebees, Bennigans, Chili's, TGIF). I heard they suffered a little at first with the change but now have a regular crowd that will pay $3 for a bottle of Bud just so they don't have to deal with the smoke. I have also learned that there is this bar that recently opened, called the Thirsty Beaver, that is non-smoking (no, I'm not checking to see if there is a website to verify its non-smoking status). Our group just voted with our feet (and wallets) to go to a different place for happy hour on Friday after one particularly horrible Friday afternoon where there wasn't anyone smoking but the place still stunk from the night before.
Seriously, there are plenty of people who like to drink but don't like to smoke (and even some people who smoke who don't like to smell like it all the time), so stop waiting for the government to enact legislation banning smoking in bars and open a non-smoking bar.
And to people who want to stop drunken driving at all costs, it would probably be easier to outlaw cars than drinking. It's pretty easy to see if someone is driving a car, but more difficult to see if someone is drinking and driving - plus, even if there are no bars one can still drink at someone else's house and drive home. Just to carry it to the completely absurd level.
Posted by: AZ at Feb 12, 2008 9:37:47 AM
Who cares about the health benefits? I certainly don't as I could care less if someone wants to kill themself. I do care that I wake up coughing the next day, have to pay to have my clothes dry-cleaned, and generally find the flavors of food at restaurants less appealing when people are smoking.
So yes, we demonize smokers, because their habit is inconsiderate and imposes a lot of externalities that they do not pay for even with their taxes.
Posted by: akatsuki at Feb 12, 2008 10:27:12 AM
Drunk driving has long been recognized as a transportation problem, not an alcohol problem. See for example J.R.Gusfield, _The Culture of Public Problems : Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order_ (U Chicago 1981)
His career is studying the creating and taking political ownership of ``public problems.''
Drunk driving was formerly a personal moral failing, and not a public problem at all.
Posted by: Ron Hardin at Feb 12, 2008 10:38:20 AM
a large overlap? another excellent reason to discriminate against smokers!
Posted by: lero at Feb 12, 2008 10:50:24 AM
"I do care that I wake up coughing the next day, have to pay to have my clothes dry-cleaned, and generally find the flavors of food at restaurants less appealing when people are smoking.
So yes, we demonize smokers, because their habit is inconsiderate and imposes a lot of externalities that they do not pay for even with their taxes."
This is a common misuse of the externalities argument. The fact is, there is not a good case to be made for smoking bans, because the externalities all take place on private property, and the property owner has incentives to efficiently weigh the costs and benefits associated with the externality.
After all, you still went to the bars and restaurants that allowed smoking, didn't you? Clearly, the smokers valued smoking more than you valued avoiding smoke, and the socially optimal decision was to allow smoking.
Therefore, attempts to ban smoking are abuse of an unpopular minority, because they override the balancing of costs and benefits that property owners already do.
And it certainly cannot be socially efficient to have zero bars and restaurants that allow smoking. Clearly, at the margin in a "smoking ban regime", it would be socially efficient to go from zero to one bar/restaurant that allows smoking.
Posted by: Keith at Feb 12, 2008 10:56:50 AM
And another point: Even if you do not believe that property owners properly weight smokers' and nonsmokers' welfare, then that would argue for a tax or fee or auction process to allow smoking. I.e., bar or restaurant owners could either pay a fee or bid on a quantity of smoking licenses.
If you prefer a ban to this regime, then you advocate tyranny of the majority, and you are IMHO, in this case, a bad person.
Posted by: Keith at Feb 12, 2008 10:59:53 AM
For a long time I've been arguing that we should sell smoking licenses instead of banning smoking. We could adjust the price to achieve an optimal mix of smoking and non-smoking establishments.
Posted by: Michael Bishop at Feb 12, 2008 11:36:59 AM
There are 960 taverns, bars, and Class B liquor licenses in the city of Milwaukee, alone. Why must EACH AND EVERY ONE of them be smoke-free? The miserable, cry-baby, do-gooders are trying to achieve politically what they can't attain in the open market. How about paying places to be smoke-free? Tax credits for "smokeieater" ventilation systems? How about printing and distributing a smoke-free, "Green" entertainment brochure? The eventual "cram-down" of this legislation is not a good idea.
Posted by: AJR_Journal at Feb 12, 2008 11:55:27 AM
If I remember correctly, central in the argument for banning smoking in NYC was that workers in the service industry should not have to be subjected to a dangerous working environment. This seems like a reasonable point to me.
What's really amazing to me though, is that no one here mentions the costs associated with illness related to smoking and second hand smoke. These are costs borne by all of us, not just smokers. Why should I have to help foot the bill for the tragic consequences of the insanely stupid choices made by this minority, Keith? Perhaps a waiver releasing the tax payers and insurance providers from the liability of future medical expenses? But what about second hand smoke then?
That said, I like the idea of auctions provided that the establishments that allow smoking are exclusively owner operated.
Posted by: Chumpo at Feb 12, 2008 1:24:44 PM
I've also heard that bar-goers drink more when they can't smoke and that his is a big reason why Smoking bans have become more common. Distributors and bar ownes dropped their opposition when they realized that they made more money on increased drink sales.
Posted by: aaron at Feb 12, 2008 1:35:57 PM
Chumpo, I believe health problems related to secondhand smoke are confined to the population of people who live with smokers. Public secondhand smoke is pretty much just matter of aesthetics.
Posted by: aaron at Feb 12, 2008 1:50:10 PM
A couple of thoughts:
Are there any studies that measure the impact of smoking bans on the tax revenue collected from cigarette sales?
@Chumpo: "If I remember correctly, central in the argument for banning smoking in NYC was that workers in the service industry should not have to be subjected to a dangerous working environment. This seems like a reasonable point to me."
Definitely a reasonable supporting argument for a ban, but individuals should bear some of the consequences of choosing where they work. If a bartender would rather work in a smoke-filled bar that had more customers than a smoke-free bar with fewer customers, why not let he or she make that decision for themselves?
Posted by: Vin at Feb 12, 2008 2:10:28 PM
"And it certainly cannot be socially efficient to have zero bars and restaurants that allow smoking."
Well, at least the ideologues have learned a little bit. The problem is that the history shows that before bans went into place, the number of bars and restaurants that allowed smoking was nearly 100% - despite a population which greatly desired otherwise.
Would you go back to the days when every single restaurant apart from the weird hippie ones had a useless non-smoking "section"? That provided a hell of a lot less social efficiency than the banned-everywhere world does.
Posted by: M1EK at Feb 12, 2008 2:25:54 PM
"Chumpo, I believe health problems related to secondhand smoke are confined to the population of people who live with smokers."
but who pays for the healthcare of the smoker's child with asthma or chronic bronchitis or the myriad of other health problems that arise?
it's not as if the child can simply leave his/her parents and live somewhere else unlike bartenders, waitresses, etc.
Posted by: a person at Feb 12, 2008 2:40:39 PM
For the folks that think that private property owners should be able to do whatever they want. You do remember that smokers costs tax payers incalculable amounts of money in health care costs?
Don't try to tell the non smokers that they are just innocent bystanders who have nothing to gain or lose.
Posted by: someone at Feb 12, 2008 2:50:49 PM
Aaron, not true. I've got asthma and had to quit going out to bars due to the smoke giving me asthma attacks. I don't think any doctor will support your claim that 2nd hand smoke only hurts family members.
Posted by: DK at Feb 12, 2008 2:57:14 PM
What we have with smoking bans is puritanism. In the old days, it was enough to call something "sinful" in order to get people fired up to ban it... however, nowadays in our supposedly secular society, we can't come right out and say "punish the sinners"... We have to make some sort of vauge arguement about public welfare to justify the same prohibitionist human needs.
Arguements about public welfare are not supposed to actually mean anything... it is a psychological crutch and a political tool to make puritanism less religious and therefore sociallly acceptable in a secular society. If you proved that second hand smoke was 100% safe and caused no health problems, if you proved that smoking bans cause drunk driving deaths to double or triple, it wouldn't matter. The prohibitionists don't want to hear your arguement, because deep down smoking is a *MORAL* issue, not a public health issue. Smoking is sinful, smoking is disgusting and declasse, therefore smoking needs to be banned. The public health arguements are, pardon the bad pun, a smoke screen.
If I remember correctly, central in the argument for banning smoking in NYC was that workers in the service industry should not have to be subjected to a dangerous working environment. This seems like a reasonable point to me.
Then you feel that it would be reasonable for NYC to ban construction work, ban boxing, and ban film photography darkrooms, all of which have equal or greater health risk than being in a smoke filled bar?
I don't suspect you will agree, but I suspect that is because construction work, boxing, or film photography aren't considered low-class or sinful like smoking.
Posted by: Rex Rhino at Feb 12, 2008 3:12:16 PM
This is a perfect example of why universal healthcare is a bad idea. When people pay for their own healthcare, nobody cares what they do. Once the state gets involved, they start complaining about other people's behavior. Smoking and obesity are targets now, but there are plenty more.
I don't believe smokers actually increase costs for society, even if we're using a strictly utilitarian model for banning behavoir. They pay a lot of taxes, and they die earlier, collecting less Social Security. Had they not smoked, they would've paid less taxes, collected more Social Security, and still needed serious medical care at some point in their life.
Posted by: 8 at Feb 12, 2008 3:30:16 PM
For the folks that think that private property owners should be able to do whatever they want. You do remember that smokers costs tax payers incalculable amounts of money in health care costs? Don't try to tell the non smokers that they are just innocent bystanders who have nothing to gain or lose.
If society decides to socialize the cost of medicine, then society paying for smokers health problems is simply a part of the redistribution. If society isn't willing to subsidize the health problems caused by lifestyle, then society shouldn't be in the buisness of subsidizing healthcare. To each according to his need, and smokers have greater need.
Should we ban mountain climbing because it is a high-risk activity and costs taxpayers extra money? Should we ban hockey because it is a high risk activity and costs the taxpayers extra money? Should we ban burgers and fries and sugary sodas? Should we have a manditory state-run exercise program that all people would be compelled by law to participate in, because that could save 20-50% of all healthcare costs. In fact, other than a handful of purely genetic diseases, most illness comes from lifestyle choices and activities.
The reason why we have smoking bans, but not hockey bans, is that smoking is considered very "sinful" and declasse/trashy, hockey less so.
And if government funding healthcare means that government can micromanage our personal lifestyle choices, then that is a fantastic arguement for why government shouldn't provide healthcare. Socialisism will inevitably look to micromanage people's lives in order to save money.
Posted by: Rex Rhino at Feb 12, 2008 3:34:10 PM
Well that's the first time I've ever been called a puritan. Sweet.
Posted by: Chumpo at Feb 12, 2008 3:40:41 PM
If the increase in drunk driving fatalities is caused by driving between jurisdictions with and without smoking bans, why charaterize the increase as being caused by smoking bans in some jurisdictions? Logically it can just as validly be argued that the increase is caused by the abscence of smoking bans in other jurisdictions. One would hope that a tenured economics professor would have the minimal grasp of basic logic necessary to recognize this.
Posted by: c. murphy at Feb 12, 2008 4:29:40 PM
