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Suggestion for a Protocol to Determine if Smoking causes Psychosis
- Richard C Campbell (2 May 2007)
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Richard C Campbell, Retired
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rcampbell{at}oco.net Richard C Campbell
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Dear Authors, I have been diagnosed with Bipolar II illness for many years. Approximately 8 years ago, I stopped smoking by entering an intensive outpatient program for chemically dependent individuals. This was a 3 year program specifically designed for nicotine cessation. The methods used were identical to the treatment of individuals addicted to other chemicals such as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol, but education and group counseling classes that concentrated on nicotine were an additional requirement for those addicted to nicotine. I found breaking the addiction to be extremely difficult. Other individuals in the program who were diagnosed as bipolar had similar problems in quitting tobacco use. To my surprise and joy, I discovered that the depths and lengths of the depressive episodes were significantly less after I had quit smoking. In particular, the auditory hallucinations that had often accompanied many of the depressive episodes when I was smoking are now very rare. My experience suggests that bipolar patients may not be smoking to alleviate the mental stresses. Rather, the fact that the psychotic episodes markedly decreased and the depressive episodes were not as frequent after I had become nicotine free indicates that tobacco may be a causative agent for both depression and psychosis. An interesting test protocol would be to attempt to replicate the results of your study with a larger group, and then induce a sizable number of test subjects to stop smoking. Retesting the tobacco free subjects to measure whether or not their symptoms were less intensive could provide a clearer understanding of the correlation between tobacco and mental illness. The obvious obstacle to this type of test is that unless a truly random subset chooses to stop smoking the results could be subject to errors. You would need to finance a very expensive smoking cessation program to have any hope of attaining a large number of bipolar patients to stop smoking. As an example, I had very strong cravings for approximately 10 months after I had quit smoking. I had tried a number of those 6 to 8 week smoking cessation courses offered by the American Heart Association or the American Cancer Society. They were ineffective. The program that worked was one offered by the Kaiser Foundation Chemical Dependency Recovery Program in Vallejo, California. Perhaps that organization would be willing to work with a researcher on a long term study designed to determine if nicotine is actually a causative agent in mental illness. Sincerely, Richard Campbell |
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