# Was this schizophrenia? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2022, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016 "2022-05-24T17:49:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Drsunflower1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drsunflower1/32/12711_2.png) [@Drsunflower1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drsunflower1)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016/41 "2022-05-28T17:09:59Z")
The colleague who had done the research was hammering down this point. I’m not sure, but I think she was aiming at the old ads that were touting tobacco as a cure for “nerves”. I can’t figure out anything else . And the difficult thing is I am a smoker and have used smoking to calm down since I started, so that doesn’t help objectivity. And as said I remember a number of studies showing that smoking does have beneficial effects in schizophrenia. From countering the side effects to classic antipsychotics to alleviating negative symptoms. So I’m on the fence as well. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016/42 "2022-05-28T17:57:16Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > But where’s the marketing part? I won’t say I don’t believe it but it must be really in media I don’t run into. They don’t have to market it; nicotine (the addictive substance in tobacco) [triggers the same neural pathways as opiates and opioids](https://phys.org/news/2005-06-nicotine-triggers-brain-reward-circuitry.html) and c[igarette manufactures have long manipulated processed tobacco to enhance ‘delivery’, e.g. freebasing nicotine](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2564657/). Tobacco is pretty much the definition of a self-marketing product, especially to addicts and people with mental health issues, provided you have a certain threshold of pre-existing use in a community. For this reason, cigarette companies have [focused on marketing to children who are (in most countries) too young to purchase their products](https://apcbham.org/2021/01/11/marketing-to-the-youth-of-america-how-big-tobacco-leveraged-advertising-to-reach-young-people/), and [still do so to this day around the world](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/how-children-around-the-world-are-exposed-to-cigarette-advertising). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016/43 "2022-05-28T18:49:22Z")
Which is disgusting to be sure, but it’s not being aimed at schizophrenics, self-diagnosed or not. Perhaps, like **Drsunflower1** mentioned, it was in those “settles jittery nerves” ads of old. ---
**Author:** ![Drsunflower1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drsunflower1/32/12711_2.png) [@Drsunflower1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drsunflower1)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016/44 "2022-05-28T20:57:45Z")
> [@Drsunflower1](#): > > The colleague who had done the research was hammering down this point. I don’t think it was advertising per se, more installing tobacco-selling machines in the hallways of psychiatric hospitals at little or no cost. So that’s pretty low. That’s at least what I remember from the lecture come to think of it. Almost invisible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-schizophrenia/965016.md?page=2)