One in three of UK’s 10 million smokers has mental disorder says RCP
Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 12:15 Try not to choke on your lunch.
A 'major new report' published today claims that one in three of the UK’s 10 million current smokers has a mental disorder.
See the Royal College of Physicians press release.
Mental health is a serious issue so I'm going to be careful what I write, but if I had a mind to I would be tempted to estimate the number of anti-smokers who have a mental disorder.
It would be quite easy to do a report. You could study the comments about smokers and smoking online and deduce (entirely objectively of course) how many were written by people who are stark raving bonkers.
Throw in some of the emails Forest receives and the figure would be quite high. This morning, for example, I saw one that read: 'DIE OF LUNG CANCER YOU CUNT'.
An April Fool press release is developing in my mind as I write:
'A major new report today claims that one in four of the UK's anti-smoking community has a mental disorder.'
Perhaps not. Mental health is way too serious an issue to make fun of but the report raises some interesting questions:
What is the definition of 'mental disorder' and has it changed?
Is addiction to nicotine/alcohol/chocolate etc a form of mental disorder?
Come 2034, when Scotland officially becomes 'smoke-free', will everyone who lights up in defiance of the modern anti-smoking orthodoxy be classified as unhinged?
And what will happen to them if they are?
Just asking.
Reader Comments (14)
It's not about health. It's becoming clearer every day. The question is, will the media continue to be the mouthpiece for this hate campaign?
This just beggars belief! Just when I thought that there cannot possibly be anything left inside the 'bottom of the pot' they scrape out this little gem!
So I'm now possibly 'ga-ga', as well as being an unmentionable blight on society and health risk to all who venture near.
When is this nonsense going to stop? Even my Rheumatology Department and GP Practice have given up offering to "help me" quit. I do not want to quit, never have and probably never will.
Here's an unbalanced statement: I thoroughly enjoy smoking because it is calming, stress busting, enables clear thought processes and, after meals, aids digestion due to relaxation after eating.
Now before anyone has me committed, please do not bring round a straight jacket as I need my hands free to light up!
Good grief! Where's my ashtray?
Ban Champix and Zyban immediately and reduce the risk of harm or even worse DEATH by suicide.
Great post Pensioner Ellie.
You say even your Rheumatology Department and GP Practice have given up offering to "help you" quit.
That is exactly what I found when my wife recently had a serious operation - the surgeon offered his serious advice to help her recuperate, which was "NOT" don't do this and don't do that - his exact words were "everything in moderation"
Now that is what I call good sound common sense!
"One in three of UK’s 10 million smokers has mental disorder says RCP"
Reading that title took me straight back to Cold War days, when the Soviets used to accuse dissidents of being mentally ill.
So 1/3 smokers are suffering from a mental disorder?
According to the Mental Health Foundation "1 in 4 British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year, and 1 in 6 experiences this at any given time.
(The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity report, 2001)"
So the difference is 1/12 or 8%, hardly statistically convincing figures. We also assume that the RCP are not fiddling the figures.
From the RCP press release
"* In view of concerns over the occurrence of depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and completed suicides in patients taking varenicline, the RCGP and RCPsych recommend that both varenicline and bupropion be used under close, coordinated supervision by health professionals, especially in the first 2–3 weeks of therapy, that family members and caregivers be alerted to the potential for adverse effects, and that varenicline or bupropion be discontinued immediately in the event of any cause for concern."
Not a great advert. I once took part in a medical trial where the control group had to be smokers. The doctor in charge told me that 90% of schizophrenics smoke because it helps their condition and lessens the side effects of their medication. So exactly how is the anti tobacco industry proposing to help them? Get hold of some lottery money and find a miracle cure for schizophrenia?
Speaking as one of those 'one in three' (and I commend you, Simon, for your careful words and tone) I am so 'pleased' (replace with a rude word of your own choosing) that the RCP is jumping on the ANTZ bandwagon. So much easier and nicer and no doubt with better biscuits courtesy of the tobacco control industry than actually bothering to confront the parlous state of mental health services in this country. Actually, given the strenuous efforts now taken to keep patients in the hands of primary mental health care (glorified social workers and fuzzy-minded nurse specialists) and away from psychiatrists, they're probably bored and lonely and looking around for something to do.
Smoking is pleasurable and reduces stress. If anyone needs either of those things it's folk with mental health problems. Strange to say, my own doctors and my now retired psychiatrist have never regarded my smoking as an issue worth discussing. But then they are/were proper medics, not ideologues.
As becoming a professor of medicine or public health requires little or no genuine academic prowess and the former rather a lot of brown nosing, I fail to see why what such people have to say is considered news. Perhaps it is all a cunning ploy by the BBC to expose just how awful the likes of John Britton really are but I don't think that they have anyone on the health team who is able to think that clearly.
Apologies for the waspish comment but I have some direct experience of the damage that these arrogant, unethical ideologues can inflict on the confused and helpless. I find their press release, their report and the medias slavish reproduction of it utterly despicable. It is high time that we stopped being forced to pay for these people.
Interestingly the BBC appears to recognize this as politics:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21956316
Well that report didn't take too long to be "reinterpreted"
Smoking may be a sign of psychiatric illness, says report, after a third of smokers are found to have a mental disorder
"Smoking may be a sign of psychiatric illness, experts say. Doctors should routinely consider referring people who smoke to mental health services, in case they need treatment, they add".
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/smoking-may-be-a-sign-of-psychiatric-illness-says-report-after-a-third-of-smokers-are-found-to-have-a-mental-disorder-8554009.html
Twenty one years from now Scotland will be smoke free, I don't thing this will ever happen, I might be wrong? maybe by 2034 many country's could be so skint the'll need every penny, and the loss of tobacco tax, "could any country afford to lose this revenue"? and prohibition has never worked. I've only just seen this about Scotland and it was the later part of this story I've commented on, but there are however, some very good comments above , personally I feel some of these people who work for these heath organization's need to take a good look in the mirror.
This report could have a hidden purpose: Damage control for the pharmaceutical companies.
Since mentally ill patients are more likely to be suicidal, a company like Pfizer can easier claim innocence for cessation drugs like Chantix, when it is taken to court, accused of making patients suicidal.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/03/pfizer_settles_80_percent_of_t.html
We all know that the war against smoking is not about health. But are we fully aware of the huge amount of money there's involved?
In that case, there must have been a hell of a lot of mental 'illness' around post war not to mention the previous few hundred years. Just think of the number of famous who could have been mentally 'ill'. Churchill, Einstein e.g. Richard Doll could originally have been but maybe he 'cured' himself.
These clowns have little idea what they let themselves in for with such drivel. I know we're in the age of presentation over substance but this is infantile.
@PT Barnum. The RCP aren't jumping onto the bandwagon. They helped build it, with ASH being an crucial component.
ASH employees, of course, are paid to encourage widespread paranoia, social division and guilt or depression among smokers.