A mental case talks about mental cases
Last night Claudia mailed me a lovely piece of whimsy.
You’re twice as likely to develop mental health problems if you smoke, HSE says
Okay. I think I can see where this is going.
SMOKERS ARE TWICE as likely to develop mental health issues than those who don’t indulge, research from an Irish health study has found.
So smoking causes mental health issues? Prove it!
Dr Paul Kavanagh, Director of Public Health Medicine North East, Specialist in Public Health Medicine and Advisor to HSE Tobacco Free Ireland programme has been researching the links between nicotine consumption and poor mental health.
Well, I’m glad to see there is no conflict of interest here! Here’s the results lads, now let’s do the study.
As part of the Healthy Ireland report which surveys 7,500 Irish people above the age of 15 and from all social strata, Kavanagh, along with his research team, studied the chance of people developing mental health problems and linked that with their current smoking status.
There is a well known fact that people with mental problems tend to smoke more, but carry on……
The provisional results found that 14.5% of smokers have a probable mental health problem compared to 7.7% of smokers. The rate of those who quit smoking was 8.1%.
Hah! Some very shoddy proof reading here. Now I would point out at this stage that people are being quizzed about their mental health by a stranger. Is the victim going to give an honest answer? Indeed how does the victim even define mental health? Equally, they are being asked about smoking where they have been brainwashed into thinking smoking is bad – are they going to give an honest answer?
Kavanagh explained how nicotine consumption affects the user.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Kavanagh said: “Smoking and mental health problems share causes. There are biological factors and social factors. Some people’s mental health problems lead them to smoking.
I have no argument with this. People under stress are more likely to smoke. It calms and relaxes them. I would take issue with the sharing of causes though. It’s more a case of problems leading to stress leading in turn to smoking.
“We know that people who have mental health problems carry false beliefs that smoking reduces anxiety. It’s a false belief. They are self-medicating in cigarettes.”
Right. Here we score our first F minus. Why is the belief false? Because the good doctor says so? Nicotine is a known reliever of stress, and saying that is false does not make it so. And if the fag doesn’t work, why do people smoke it?
Kavanagh explained how smoking in and of itself can lead to mental health problems. He said that there are biological factors at play and that smoking can affect how your brain works.
At last we get to the good clear weapons grade bullshit. Mister Tobacco Free Ireland has used the old trick of cause and effect. How the fuck is smoking supposed to cause mental health problems? Having already admitted that people smoke to relieve their symptoms, he now reverses his argument and claims that smoking causes the symptoms. People feel stress and anxiety and smoke to relieve that stress and anxiety. Is he seriously claiming that a happy go lucky person takes up smoking and that causes the stress and anxiety?
“Smokers put their brains under a strenuous cycle of giving nicotine and then they enter a withdrawal cycle quite quickly,” he said.
So our brains suffer from metal fatigue? Wow!
But Kavanagh added that there were more than psychological issues with smoking at play.
He explained: “People who smoke can have problems with self-image and how they’re perceived. Social factors are also there. People who smoke carry significant financial strain.”
And whose fucking fault is that, Mister Tobacco Free Ireland? You have done your utmost in the past to stigmatise and denigrate smokers in an attempt to turn them into outcasts and third class citizens. You constantly demand price increases and then you worry about people being under a financial strain? That is mind boggling hypocrisy.
The message emanating from the studies is that the mental health benefits of quitting smoking are immense.
The message coming from the studies is that either you are a deluded moron who can’t see beyond your personal obsessions and religious fanaticism, Mister Tobacco Free Ireland, or else you think the rest of us are stupid.
Oh do fuck off.
Hypocrisy doesn’t even come close to describing the mental state of Mr Tobacco Free Ireland, does it? 😉
Talking about junk science … here’s another one: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/health/nicotine-found-to-cause-lower-back-pain-that-leads-to-surgery-9837654
The subjects in question were construction workers. Nothing at all to do with back problems. They can’t say, cause they didn’t ask said subjects about their exercise regimen.
Meh.
When I still was a smoker I honestly didn’t know how much junk is out there. I guess, the majority of smokers still doesn’t know. Brainwashing doesn’t begin to describe it …
The point has been reached [[and passed] where research is judged purely on its entertainment value. Why don’t they just state that smoking causes everything [studies suggest!], and leave it at that?
That wouldn’t be impressive enough. And even the dimwitted would realize that something’s off. 😉
Smoking can’t cause everything, they need lists of bad stuff caused by global warming, brexit, obesity, salt, sugar, diesels etc. They have to share the problems out fairly betwen all these ‘good’ causes, they can’t all cause everything….or can they?
The Holy Grail is cancer. If you can link anything to cancer you are onto a winner.
What’s the betting that they are studying links between Brexit and cancer? Everything else you mention has been linked.
There seems to be a lot of this sort of upside down thinking around. Here’s one which argues that cigarettes cause stress rather than relieve stress:
When you don’t smoke for a while, you may start to feel nicotine withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms can range from physical ailments to psychological ones such as anxiety. If you experience anxiety, nervousness, and irritability when you haven’t had your regular smoke, you may think other things in your life are causing you to feel this way and contribute it to being stressed. When you smoke, you alleviate some of the nicotine withdrawal symptoms and then think that it’s the nicotine that calms your nerves.
So you may have thought you were feeling stressed and anxious because you were in a trench in Flanders with enemy soldiers shooting at you, and that was why you needed a cigarette. But it actually wan’t like that at all. Really you were only feeling stressed and anxious because you were suffering withdrawal symptoms from not having had your regular smoke. And if you’d not been a smoker, you wouldn’t have felt any stress and anxiety, however many bullets were being fired at you.
Is that clear now?
So all these years I have been taking aspirin to ease headaches when in fact it was the aspirin that caused the headaches? My brain remembers the relief I felt the last time I took one so it gives me a headache in order to make me take another dose.
Yes.
That makes sense…..
Yes. And you’re now hopelessly addicted to aspirin, of course.
And if Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was actually a new prospective pain relief medication under testing it probably wouldn’t be allowed on the market due to it’s “addictive qualities”.
And ALL of the oldest people in the world have been lifelong smokers. These people are pathetic with their hateful lies. Methinks they protest too much. Love your posts, Grandpa.
Thanks, Cindy! There is a point in that article that I didn’t mention and that was that 9% of smokers were over 75 year of age. I thought they were all dead? Smoking kills, after all?
I don’t smoke and I’m mad as a hatter. Ipso facto, quod erat demonstrandum…
[*cough*] Catch 22 ?
So if I damaged my mental health due to smoking for 26 years and I quit in December 2005, do I get my mental health back (such as it was) or do I have to wait another 14 years? If so I’d probably be at the point where I wouldn’t care either way.
Dear Grandad
Don’t forget that these folk are also paid handsomely with pensions to match from the taxpayers’ pockets for this.
Are there any anti-smokers who are not paid for by the taxpayer?
Plainly our politicians and bureaucrats derive some benefit from the persecution of smokers, otherwise they wouldn’t fund it so lavishly. Having said that, the sums involved in the scheme of government squandering of our wealth is in the fiddly small change, back-of-the-sofa bracket.
Perhaps our lords and masters enjoy the sideshow of smoker control and think it worth every penny of our money that they squander on them.
So how to reign in government?
President Trump has shown what one man and determination can achieve. Scott Adams is pointing the way to how he does it and how we can do the same: http://blog.dilbert.com/
Happy New Year to one and all. 2018 can be the year we turn the tide on all the parasites that feed off us.
DP