What I find fascinating is smoking (tobacco) is very high among people who are diagnosed schizophrenic or bipolar for some reason. It calms them.
As I recall, there was a serious increase in people taking mood regulating drugs when the jihad against tobacco began. No longer were people self-medicating when they felt a need with a cigarette. In some workplaces and many other circumstances, the ability to do so was removed, either by regulation, legislation, or under the threat of loss of employment. But suddenly, there were 'depressed' people behind every bush, taking medication that could be patented, yet did not have thousands of years (hundreds of years with Europeans) of experience behind it. SO, with the SSRIs and MAOIs and other lovely chemicals that did work for some (and still do) there were instances of absolute horror show reactions no one had to tobacco.
Also, if you will, recall the wounded in war movies smoking a cigarette, or people who had just been through a deeply affecting circumstance, be it a death in the family, an accident, or some other shock, they all smoked a cigarette (or more than one). The physiological effects of nicotine, constricting the peripheral blood vessels, driving the blood supply to the body core help ward off shock and commonly had a calming effect. This is something I witnessed when I was a fireman, working as EMS, especially with people who had been injured and those who had had a serious close call (or very bad news). Those physiological effects are the same reason someone who does not normally smoke will bum a cigarette when they are exceptionally drunk, to offset the vasodilation effects of the alcohol and feel more sober.
Of course, none of these benefits could withstand the onslaught of popular science telling us how 'evil' tobacco was. ...and at least the kids shooting up their high school didn't smell like tobacco smoke.
If that seems intense for some, I grew up working in my grandfather's tobacco fields, and saw the economic benefit of being able to raise a cash crop on a few acres that could put kids through college. That's all gone now, for the most part where I grew up, along with the work ethic, and the opportunities it presented. We all knew that smoking wasn't good for you, and we knew why, but we saw the benefits it gave people too. In the examination of a crop that was once used as money, none of the benefits were considered, they were summarily dismissed.
