NEW YORK POST: It’s no secret that smoking cigarettes can ruin your body.
The list of illnesses that smoking causes — heart disease, stroke, diabetes, emphysema, bronchitis and several types of cancer — is long and troubling.
However, most people don’t realize that smoking is also associated with mental illness.
In recent years, studies have suggested that there’s a strong link between the two.
But researchers haven’t been able to decide whether smoking causes mental disorders, or if individuals who already have a mental disorder smoke to ease their symptoms. » | Marc Lallanilla | Monday, September 11, 2023
Here we go again! This is a new one: Now, smoking can make you doolally! Is there a disease or malady known to man which smoking isn’t said to be the cause of? Pointing out the dangers of smoking seems to have been turned from a science into a sport! These killjoys must be asking themselves one simple question each month: Which illness can we come up with this time which we can blame on smoking?
I am myself an ex-smoker, so I no longer have skin in the game; however, it does irritate me when I read these articles, because we are living in a time in which so many people get their kicks from far, far worse and unhealthier habits than the enjoyment of the odd cigarette.
We are living in a time in which many governments have either legalized soft drugs or are in the process of doing so; yet nobody speaks of the dangers of those habits. I am not a father, and at this age I am very unlikely ever to become one, however, were I to have a son, I would prefer him to enjoy the odd cigarette than a joint. As unhealthy as cigarettes can be, especially if over-indulged in, they don’t bend the mind.
As an ex-educator, I was appalled last week to learn that there are now children as young as 10 years of age going to school in the US high on marijuana! Now that truly is a worry! Not whether or not an older man enjoys the odd cigarette.
Moreover, look at the opioid addiction in America (and in other countries)! It is a disgrace that this problem has been allowed to grow out of control. Governments control the smoking of tobacco to a ridiculous extent, yet they do little to control the abuse of other substances. In fact, they are now actively encouraging their use!
Moreover, by hitting the smokers of tobacco so hard, governments have created a huge problem among young people because so many of them have taken to vaping, the long-term health consequences of which we don’t yet know.
Government intervention invariably exacerbates such problems. Governments should start to try and control the important things and allow adults to make up their own minds about where they get their kicks. Try not to kill all the joys of life; otherwise, life will cease to be worth living. Indeed, so restricted have things become that we are nearly there already! – © Mark Alexander
