mental health self-medicators?

Doctors once recommended smoking to alleviate anxiety and Didi’s mom swore by it as a sanity saver before she died at 85 leaving Didi as sole carer for her dad – both of whom cope with grief and underlying depression by being self-medicating cigarette smokers.

"I had quit smoking hundreds of times before I moved back home to become my mom's caregiver," says Didi, "and it was only then that I finally faced the fact that some people really need to smoke for their mental health."

"The quitting process and maintaining a smoke-free life forever -- without becoming obese or crazy -- is extremely stressful and probably more a health hazard than continuing to smoke," says Didi, "and this is particularly true for a smoker who has underlying depression like I had."

"I believe smoking is a personal choice and smokers should be made aware of all the facts -- for and against," says Didi. "Right now, the media is totally lopsided in favor of the anti-smoking lobby and this is not just unfair it's negligent because its use in helping with mental health issues has been deliberately suppressed."

"Who is taking responsibility for fragile ex-smokers who take up harder drugs, become obese and diabetic or develop a full-blown mental disease?" asks Didi. "Nobody, that's who.”

“Doctors are far too busy to personally supervise every smoker who quits, and all the anti-smoking fanatics care about is themselves."

"Like my dad says, the anti-smokers have spawned a multi-million dollar industry around us," sighs Didi. "First they created the fear of lung cancer, then they lobbied governments to enact laws against smokers and exact levies from them -- not to be used, as promised, to pay for the so-called medical costs of smoking but to pay for the salaries of the lobbyists -- and then the psycho-medico professionals and the pharmaceutical industry jumped on the band-wagon with their mumbo jumbo cessation therapies and snake oil patches and potions."

“Why can’t they see that people with mental health issues need to smoke?”

Read more by Didi on this issue:

dealing with elderly parents and doctors

Anti-smoking vaccine?

War vet victimized for smoking