WELL-ADJUSTED PEOPLE DON'T KILL THEMSELVES?:

Smoking doesn't make you happy (Andrew Gould, 3/06/08, The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry )

Dr. Lang and his team carried out a study involving 9176 individuals aged 50 or over, who took part in ELSA, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The studies for the research categorised people as never-smokers, ex-smokers and current smokers, and used household wealth as an indicator for socio-economic position.

Said Dr. Lang: “We found no evidence to support the claim that smoking is associated with pleasure, either in people from lower socio-economic groups or in the general population.”

He added: “People may feel like they’re getting pleasure when they smoke a cigarette but in fact smokers are likely to be less happy overall – the pleasure they feel from having a smoke comes only because they’re addicted. These results show smoking doesn’t make you happy – in fact, it is associated with poorer overall quality of life..”