[04-09] 【Eco-美国】 Unlucky strikes不幸的罢工
Smoking and drinking
Unlucky strikes
不幸的罢工
Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition
Translation veronica_liu126
America's smoking bans are causing fatal accidents
美国吸烟禁令引发致命车祸
BANNING smoking in public places is supposed to save lives. It encourages people to smoke less, so they do themselves and those around them less harm. That, at least, is the theory. Whether it works may depend on how uniform anti-smoking legislation is.
禁止在公共场所吸烟的本意是挽救生命。它鼓励人们少抽点烟，这样不论是对自己还是对他人都少些危害。这至少在理论上是可行的。但是禁烟能否成功则取决于反吸烟法例的制定。
Although many countries have introduced national bans, America has taken a piecemeal approach. A number of states, counties and municipalities have introduced various types of bans, and have enforced them with varying degrees of rigour.
尽管许多国家已经实行了国家禁令，美国也做了些尝试。在一些州、郡县和直辖市推行各种类型不同程度的强制禁烟令。
The problem with this, say Scott Adams and Chad Cotti, economists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is that smoking bans seem to have been followed by an increase in drunk-driving and in fatal accidents involving alcohol. In research published in the Journal of Public Economics, the authors find evidence that smokers are driving farther to places where smoking in bars is allowed.
威斯康星-密尔沃基大学的两位经济学家：斯科特’亚当斯和查德’科蒂认为这样做的问题在于禁烟令颁布后，随之而来的是酒后驾车及涉及酒精的致命车祸增多。在最近《公共经济学》杂志上发表的一篇研究中，作者们找到的证据表明：吸烟者为了能够找到不禁烟的酒吧而被迫开车去更远的地方。
The researchers analysed data from 120 American counties, 20 of which had banned smoking. They found a smoking ban increased fatal alcohol-related car accidents by 13% in a typical county containing 680,000 people. This is the equivalent of 2.5 fatal accidents (equivalent to approximately six deaths). Furthermore, drunk-driving smokers have not changed their ways over time. In areas where the ban has been in place for longer than 18 months, the increased accident rate is 19%.
研究者分析了从120个美国郡县搜集来的资料，其中的20个郡县颁布了禁烟令。他们发现在一个拥有68万人口的典型郡县中，禁烟令使涉及酒精的车祸发生率增加到百分之十三。这相当于2.5倍的致命死亡率（约等于6倍的正常死亡率）。不仅如此，酒后驾驶的吸烟者并没有随着时间的推移而改变他们的生活方式。在禁烟令颁布超过18个月的地方，车祸的增加率是百分之十九。
The findings, say the pair, are consistent with the suggestion that smokers are driving farther to alternative places to drink. This may be because they are driving to bars with outdoor seating, or to bars which are not enforcing the smoking ban.
这些调查结果与经济学家的猜想相一致，表明吸烟者被迫驾车到更远的地方喝酒。这是因为他们必须去寻找带有户外座位或者不强制禁烟的酒吧。
Another explanation is that some smokers are “jurisdiction shopping” to places where they may puff. Accident rates can be especially high where border-hopping to still-smoky bars is possible. Accidents in Delaware county in Pennsylvania increased by 26% after the next-door state of Delaware introduced a smoking ban in 2002. Similarly, when Boulder county banned smoking, fatal accidents in Jefferson county, between Boulder county and Denver, went up by 40%. How this weighs up against the long-term health effects of smoking bans is unclear. But it serves as a warning to well-meaning legislators.
另一种解释是：一些吸烟者进行“区域购物”，去寻找那些他们依然受欢迎的地方。当相邻区域还存在不禁烟酒吧的时候，跨境吸烟将导致那些地方的车祸率急剧升高。2002年，位于宾夕法尼亚州的特拉华郡，在其邻郡的推行禁烟令后，其车祸率增加到百分之二十六。同样的，当波尔德郡禁烟后，位于波尔德和丹佛中间的杰佛逊郡的致命车祸率上升到百分之四十。这些现象的发生与为了长期健康而禁烟孰轻孰重，目前尚不清楚。但是这对于本意良好的立法委员来说是一个警告。
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