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Reuters
Mentally ill adults in the United States smoke cigarettes at a 70 percent higher rate than adults without any kind of mental illness, according to a report released by federal health agencies on Tuesday.
Statistics show smoking by the mentally ill is a "very serious health issue that needs more attention" and should prompt mental health facilities to ban the habit, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We need to do more to help smokers with mental illness quit," Frieden told reporters during a telephone briefing.
The CDC study found 36 percent of mentally ill adults smoke, compared with 21 percent of other adults. Those with mental illnesses also smoke more heavily, consuming an average of 331 cigarettes per month, compared with 310 for other smokers, the report found.
Tobacco can alter some aspects of mental illness, such as anxiety. But it can also lead to a long list of other health problems and should not be used as a form of self medication, Frieden said.
"There are very good treatments and very good counseling that, unlike cigarettes, don't take 10 years off your life," he said.
The study analyzed data from the 2009-2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which involved interviews with 138,000 adults at their homes.
The survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration did not include patients in mental hospitals or members of the U.S. military.
It defined a current smoker as someone who had smoked all or part of a cigarette in the prior 30 days, and defined mental illness as having a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder in the past 12 months.
Among the mentally ill, smoking rates were higher in younger, poor and less-educated adults, Frieden said. The study found regional differences in smoking habits among the mentally ill, with rates ranging from 18.2 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in West Virginia.
The CDC urged mental health facilities to ban smoking both by patients and staff, Frieden said.
Cigarette smoking contributes to approximately 443,000 U.S. deaths each year and is the leading cause of preventable death, the CDC said.
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So now we smokers have mental problems !!!!!!
Smokers are like druggies. The more you use the more your body craves for it. It is a habit !!! What will they try to pin on us next ??? Smokers are more likely to be mass murders then non smokers. Why can't they just leave us alone ?? Smoking is something we enjoy doing. Do we jump all over you because you drink or drink to much ??? How about you over active fork people. Do we go after you and harass you ??? You pose longer medical care problems and costs then we do. But we for the most part leave you alone. You like us know the dangers of what you are doing. Like us you choose to do it anyway. Live, love, laugh and be happy. Life is to short as it is.
Our food and alcohol doesn't make us stink like you. Your drug habit oozes from your pores, and coats your skin and hair - you stink. I can smell a smoker from 10 yards. The places you smoke also stink.
Bob1/28, bad eating and drinking habits DO raise healthcare costs for all of us, but smoking creates an additional annoyance. If I sit on a park bench, or near an open window in my home, and a heavy drinker or overweight person walks by, I am not directly affected by their bad habits. Not the same, if I get your smoke on my clothes or in my lungs. I enjoy a drink now and then. Would you like it if I grabbed you as you walked by and poured alcohol down your throat?
I would think a right to clean air trumps a right to smoke, especially for those who are sensitive to smoke, sometimes just walking past a smoker into a building induces headaches which would not have been induced had there been no smoke or the person smoked somewhere else but not in front of an entrance.
The person that is sensitive to smoke, getting headaches, and who's productivity is diminished if that is where they work cannot help the body that they were given. The point is that their body is sensitive to smoke, it just is, even if everything else they do in life is to keep it healthy (like have a good diet and exercise).
Plus, even second hand smoke had been shown to trigger heart attacks (http://www.adph.org/publications/assets/ah0704.pdf). So, while you may think you have a right to smoke, you have no right in public if your habit can cause the death of a person sitting next to you in public like at a restaurant or public bus stop. (From the article cited: Even short-term exposures - lasting as little as 30 minutes - may pose significant risks, especially in persons who already have or are at special risk of heart disease.
Michael to be fair, I've known alcoholics that still smell in the morning after a night of drinking and alcohol oozes from their pores. Also, obese people that cannot properly maintain their hygiene stink too. Those smells make me sick. I'm also not a fan of smelling someone who had a garlicy dinner and that oozes too.
I'm not arguing that smokers don't stink just pointing out that others do too.
Agreed Lisa. Jrs with this logic we should ban campgrounds and camping too, not to mention perfume , mens cologne, body wash , cars too they stink., garbage. etc
I am not a fan of smoking but the its stinks argument can be taken too far.
double post
@aster...
There is no point in taking what I said out of context or inferring things into the logic of what I said and taking the argument to the extreme without any valid supportive evidence. I am not aware of any legitimate scientific research that links campgrounds, camping, perfume, bodywash, or garbage with increased health risks of heart attacks and cancer for those that come in contact with it. If you are aware of such valid peer-reviewed scientific studies that establish causal links to these "smells", then please list them. (Though, I have heard about cases where employees were fired for wearing too much perfume and did not reduce the amount when asked by the management.)
My point was not that smoking smells bad. My point was that the chemicals within cigarette smoke have been well studied and the causal links between secondhand smoke exposure and heart attacks has been identified. My further point was that a "right to smoke" does not trump the "right to clean air" and by that virtue, the "right to life" (like what is said in our Declaration of Independence).
If by you smoking in public, you may kill (by accident) a person sitting next to you also in public (for example, at a bus stop), by inducing a heart attack in someone where the heart attack would not have induced had there been no smoke, then you are denying that person the right to life based on your perceived right to smoke. It does not matter if that person had heart disease and was predisposed, the point is that the smoke was the catalyst that induced the heart attack and had the smoke not been present, the person would still be alive.
To argue that you should be able to smoke next to people that you do not know and have no idea of their health history is like making a diabetic drink a sugary drink just because you sat next to them at a bus stop. People should have a choice of what they put into their bodies and going out in public should not force you to inhale someone else's smoke if you do not want to.
From the CDC (Centers for Disease Control).
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/
The choice is SMOKING/NON SMOKING AREAS out in Public. YOU ACCOMMODATE THE RIGHT NOT VIOLATE AND BAN IT.
EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW. Don't Smoke?..........Don't hang out and sit on the benches IN THE SMOKING AREA!
Wow! The Mentally Ill smoked 21 cigarettes a month more and here's another opne of those studies that's trying to create a "special class" for THEIR agenda and actually crosses the line, at this point, over and into "TARGETED DISCRIMINATORY HARASSMENT" to try and force an agenda, against their will, onto them; and penalize (the taking away of a Person's liberty is penalizing) Smoking is a choice....it's an addiction.....and QUITTING IS A CHOICE. period
"Inescapable Stress" (Psychological and Emotional) is at the heart of the addiction behind Smoking, more than the Physical component. This continued UNWARRANTED PUNITIVE TARGETING, HARASSMENT, VIOLATION OF RIGHTS instead of ACCOMMODATION OF RIGHTS only serves to, not only harm the Individual by violating their Rights, it also "Targetedly" HARMS by EXACERBATING the inescapable stress.
Of the long and short of it..........that's just the short of it!
Thomas Friedeman trying to paint the smokers as mentally ill yet again. I suppose Dr friedeman being mayor bloombergs former top Nazi in tobacco control isn't a bit guilty of hating smokers. Big Pharma doesn't like competition in treating folks either who smoke and self medicate.
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS"
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
"5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease."
In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
Did you read the story at ALL? It doesn't say that smokers are mentally ill. It says that mentally ill people who smoke, tend to smoke WAY MORE than other smokers.
They did read the story and i am getting eduated at the same time.Some of this is good for the library in the brain so to speak.At least now i have some links i can check out.Don't you agree?
Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds.
By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News.
Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.
What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.
“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study...........................
Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!
The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:
Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.
146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.
A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.
Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!
FIne, John, fine. Stick multiple cigarettes in your mouth, nose, ears, and elsewhere, light them with reports about the ill effects of smoking, and knock yourself out. Your right however to make your assertions, ends at the noses of those around you.
John,
Please don't ever become an advice columnist!
When will all these health nuts realize that some of us just enjoy to smoke, and that that joy outweighs the risks? I'm so tired of this negative stigma on smoking, all this faux science scaring people away from a smoker that's already 10 feet away in an outdoor area, and all these discriminatory attempts to flush us out and put us away. I swear, I remember somebody telling me so many years ago that the great thing about this country is our freedom. I wonder when that all went to hell.
Something else worth noting is how vague the mental illness requirement is. ADHD is considered a mental disorder, so is anxiety. Somebody could have had one incident with anxiety in a 12 month period, and BAM they are instantly considered mentally ill. even addiction falls under that category, so anybody considered addicted to cigarettes could be in the mix, too. It's a really broken study, much like the second hand smoke studies, so go figure. (As a note, I'm fully aware second hand smoke is bad for you. When you are exposed to it in cramped or poorly ventilated environments, for prolonged periods of time. Not in open spaces, for short periods of time.)
I take issue with the article as well. I am Bipolar which is a mental illness and I have never smoked in my life. Don't lump mental illness in with smokers, really.
Smokers are stupid. Gee, they finally figured that out! Duh...
No, Michael, self-righteous folk who blindly call one segment of society stupid are stupid. Smoking is one aspect of life and is a personal decision, just as drinking, overeating, driving too fast, and engaging in other risky behaviors are. I'm sure you have your own "stupid" life choices, so don't critique everyone else.
Yeah sorry, not ALL life choices affect me in the same way that having healthy lungs give me the ability to BREATHE! I can't do much of the other bad things you speak of if I can't breathe can I?
Besides(and I'm not saying it to be "self-righteous" as you call it, which is already an attitude problem and false accusation/assumption on YOUR part!)Some people actually DO(and genuinely)care to keep themselves as healthy as possible. I didn't know it was "self-righteous" to do so, my bad!-lol. I'm thin as I eat well, I DON'T drink, tan(don't need to), or sleep around(don't want to) so...am I a "goody-two shoes?" Maybe, but whatever who cares? I also look better age-wise than most of my friends and peers who drink, smoke, party,etc...And sorry, but time is never good to the drinker, smoker, partier, etc... they always pay for it later! I have aged VERY well and I'm proud of it. I appreciate the looks from the opposite sex(and just have to laugh at the jealous ones I get from other women-lol.)! I'm a woman of color who is almost 40 and look no older than my late 20's! Part of it is genetics, but the bigger part? Watching what I eat and how I live!
Call it whatever you want("self-righteous," etc...)to. I call it LOVING and RESPECTING myself and my body enough to watch what I put into it. As we all know, if put junk in- you'll get junk out!
No, you aren't necessarily a "goody two-shoes." You made personal choices and stuck with them. Congratulations to you.
I'm okay with not smoking in closed areas, such as restaurants and such, because I've seen the haze that develops when several people are smoking at once. However, I see no problem with smoking in a wide open area where the smoke dissipates almost immediately. I see a problem with charging outrageous taxes on cigarettes and then dictating the circumstances under which they can be smoked. And I see a huge problem with the government possibly telling me I cannot smoke in my own house (there are states considering banning smoking in a home with children--the state does not pay my mortgage, so they have no business telling me I cannot engage in a legal activity there). I also have a problem with non-smokers who instantly and rudely comment on the intellectual levels of smokers. I smoke and have done so for a long time. I also have a master's degree and am successful at my job. Smoking does not lower my intelligence.
And it's not an attitude problem. It's replying to a sweeping generalization with another sweeping generalization.
I would guess that they included alcoholism as one of the behavioral disorders as a mental illness causing people to smoke more.
Did anyone commenting on this article even read it? It simply says people with mental illness smoke more - which is no surprise. You smokers need to quit being so defensive (I'm a smoker) - it didn't say smokers are mentally ill.
But I will say this - People that have very little - like mental patients, prisoners, recovering drug/alcohol addicts, homeless people.....tobacco's one of those few things they can still enjoy. It's just those few minutes of pleasure that they can get in a life full of misery - so I understand why the smoking rate would be higher for a lot of these people.
I'm not defending it, but go to an AA meeting, or a NarcAnon meeting, or a mental hospital, or a homeless shelter...you'll see people that have very little in life lighting it up. Not sure how anyone could really hold it against them.
LMAO!!!!!!!! Another huge waste of taxpayers dollars to study something EVERYONE IN THE MENTAL HEALTH FIELD HAS KNOWN FOR OVER 60 YEARS! 35 years ago I worked in a Mental Health Facility, one of those Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown shut down and released the Patients to half-way houses who soon wound up in Jail for violent acts upon the populace. Another Demoncrat plan gone sour due to the Politicians being very ignorant and hoping to garner Campaign funds from the Half-way-house owners..Thankfully people were smart enough to kick out Moonbeam the next chance they got. But being lame brain Californians they brought him back and already he is creating miracles with a balanced budget out of "thin air" when there a 30 Billion Shortfall two months ago, so you know he is a Liar...At the Hospital I worked in, to save money the Liberal Politicians in their "all knowing" Wisdom tried to install a "No Smoking Policy" at the Facility which turned into a major combat situation for two months until the Liberal Politicians backed down, I myself suffered a such a severe Concussion from one of the Patients "Acting out" the County had to spend over $40,000 to retrain me in another profession out of fear that another head hit would permanently disable me. Now in another "limited" study, they found that Marijuana calmed many Patients down, as much or to the same level as some of the Chemical Handcuffs they used,, but I doubt this Administration will sell out their Pharmaceutical buddies and give the Patients a joint over those $3.55 Pills....See many mental patients have brains that operate at 10 times the speed of your brain with random thoughts just taking over their entire being. Many are extremely smart and crafty, and will spend hours completing Jigsaw puzzles at 10 times the speed of a normal person but, when confronted with a mixed thought or cannot resolve a mental problem to their satisfaction they get violent, whereas the Chemical Handcuffs slow down that brain to some extent...just like Nicotine helps some people think clearer and that is why the psych patients smoke so much, their self medicating........
This information has been around as I said for over 35 years,,,so why are they now bringing it out? The Government gonna take away your Cigarettes?? At the same time, the Public Health Service is doing a $100 million dollar taxpayer paid for Survey of 66,000 randomly selected citizens via Westtec "a privately owned company" on the bad things Alcohol does to you.! I know I had an interview a couple of weeks ago for which they paid me $90. and they were disappointed. I use Alcohol as a Condiment, not as the main course..They even looked into my Cupboards and Refrigerator to see how much alcohol I had in the House..2 Bottles of Out Dated Beer and two bottles of Wine, one with a date on it of 2002.... So is the Obama Administration going to take away your Alcohol? You had better worry because the little Dictator is on a roll...
I had a relative with a severe mental illness. Oh how she loved to smoke. Visiting her I got to see first hand the smoking issue referred to in the article. Here's the deal. All of them were adults. They had smoked heavily their entire life. It was a relief and a release for them. Through all the suffering and yes they do SUFFER, smoking gave them an escape. They absolutely loved it. Then the state said no more in our facilities. They could not understand anything except suddenly no smoking allowed. It was devastating for all of them. The one constant joy in their life ripped away. The one social bond they had in common taken away for what. It sounds absurd to us but to them it was an escape from the voices or the "words". Decry if you will the smokers trampling on your rights but have some compassion for those whose lives are not their own.
So basically smokers are 'tards. I believe that.
Aloha Everyone,
This article disturbed me. Not only did a single study bring the CDC to this conclusion but the CDC is making recommendations to all mental health facilities based on this. A similar study was completed by the University of California Irvine regarding cigarette smoking and addiction. The study found that Individuals with Mental Illness such as Schizophrenia actually benefited from smoking cigarettes. It allowed for chemicals to flow more easily and it assisted in repairing synapse connectivity in the brain of schizophrenic patients. If the CDC is going to make recommendations they should do all of their research. Their are actual benefits for the mentally ill if they smoke cigarettes. Obviously the risks associated with smoking are great but if you see actual positive motion forward with Schizophrenic patients using tobacco why in the world would you recommend to ban cigarettes in all mental health care facilities. Thank you CDC for overstepping their bounds and not getting all of the information before they acted on their assumptions.
Psychiatric wards, which used to let people smoke, have been smoke-free for years now. I have seen non-smokers on psych units take up cigarettes because patients who were already hooked got taken outside for cigarette breaks. Just being able to get off the ward and out of the building for even 20 minutes was enough of an unintended lure to cause some of the non-smokers to start smoking. Ridiculous, I know, as the smoke-free rules were supposed to reduce smoking; here is one case where they didn't exactly work. Still, being locked on a ward with blue air is unacceptable, so I do agree that these wards should not allow smoking. I think there should be no smoking anywhere in a hospital, but most especially on units that patients cannot themselves decide to leave.
I'm wondering if there will be a big reduction in people seeking mental health help when they put this in place. If these people are so inclined to smoke why would they seek to go to a place that will not allow it .
It is not so easy to actually commit someone involuntarily to hospital care.
As someone who quit smoking in 1995 and since then have often wished I had a substitute for the relaxing benefit of a cigarette during times of high stress, I greatly wonder at this study and its recommendations. First of all, the higher rate of smoking may be due to the mental problems, not the other way around.
Do they smoke because they are mentally ill or does smoking cause mental illness?
This is good that these smokers die at a faster rate. Just think, if they don't have health insurance they will die even faster ! ! ! The Republican Party blesses us all in one way or another.
Unfortunately, the schizophrenics, who skew these figures because 90%+ of them smoke, will never get lung cancer, because the same biological properties that lead to their illnesses also protect them from certain forms of cancer, particularly that of the lung. It is, however, more likely to predispose them to TB, emphysema and COPD, leaving you to pay for chronic disabilities lasting years, as they wheeze their lives away.