Results Are In

Mexico's anti-smoking laws have been in place more than a year now, and Mitofsky finds no significant change in smoking habits. The percentage of people identifying themselves as smokers has bounced between 22 and 25 percent, but hasn't shown a downward tendency. The number of cigarettes per day for smokers has declined, but only from 7.9 to 7.7. Of course, it's a only a year in, and the sort of wide societal change one would hope for would seem to take decades, if not generations. Furthermore, the benefit of smoking laws doesn't lie only in preventing smoking, but also in protecting the well being and comfort of the non-smoker, which is much harder to measure.