Scotland's smoking ban appears to have prevented hundreds of heart attacks in its first year, a study shows.
The number of people admitted to the hospital for heart attacks fell by 17% in the year after Scotland's smoking ban took effect in March 2006, according to a study in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

The study's author, Jill Pell of the University of Glasgow, says the size of the decline strongly suggests it was the smoke-free law and not some other trend or lifestyle change that prevented the heart attacks.