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All the manipulative ads with the "heart-felt" concern from and for strangers, alternating with scare tactics, the outright hostility against the evil smoker, the skyrocketing price of tobacco products, the taxes, the bans from public places...Heck. It's like being a teenager with condescending and irrational parents again. The assumption is that smokers aren't adult enough, or educated enough, to realize what they're doing. I'll grant that's often the case with those under 18.
But the more things I read about the links between mental illness and smoking the more I wish the do-gooders would *think* about the reasons behind smoking behavior. This is one time that the reasons aren't elusive, but right under their noses, so to speak.
Most smokers have some sort of mental disorder, usually depression, ADD, or schizophrenia. They know it's bad for their body. Duh! They don't smoke for their physical health, they smoke for their *mental* health. A large number of smokers are depressed, which is why Zyban, an anti-depressant, works for them. Nicotine, among other things, is a painkiller and a stimulant.
Most adults treated for ADD smoke and/or drink, in an effort to medicate themselves. They're also more prone to risky behaviors in general. A really astounding study found virtually 100% of schizophrenics smoke. They have isolated a substance from cigarettes that is apparently the reason schizophrenics crave them, hoping that they can create a medication based on that substance. The only schizophrenic I know is a cousin, and he chain smokes. He's the only smoker I know of in my immediate or extended family.
Instead of social disdain (which the mentally ill already receive) there should be concern for an underlying problem. Only I can just imagine how it would turn into the universal statement ALL SMOKERS ARE CRAZY. But isn't that what the average non-smoker thinks now, anyway?
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