Coming soon — ads from cigarette and cigar makers touting the anti-Parkinson’s benefits of smoking. Yes, tobacco IS healthy for you. Well, except for that cancer thing.

Smoke This: Parkinson’s is rarer among tobacco users

Call it a flimsy silver lining to a noxious blue cloud: Long-term smokers have half the risk of Parkinson’s disease that nonsmokers do, according to a new report.

In 12,000 people studied, those who smoked the most—the equivalent of at least a pack a day for 60 years—had the lowest risk. And after smokers stubbed out their last butts, the protective effect faded.

Cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoking appear to offer similar anti-Parkinson’s benefits, according to the report in the July Archives of Neurology.

Author Beate Ritz of the University of California, Los Angeles characterizes the amount of Parkinson’s protection provided by smoking as moderate. “Never-smokers have about a twofold higher risk of Parkinson’s disease than ever-smokers,” she says.