Quit Smoking Medication – Warning about using for folk with mental illness

Quit Smoking Medication – Warning about using for folk with mental illness


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056892/Anti-smoking-drug-greatly-raises-suicide-risk-used-resort.html

Anti-smoking drug 'greatly raises suicide risk and should only be used as a last resort'
By Fiona Macrae Science Correspondent Last updated at 12:02 AM on 3rd November 2011

” A popular anti-smoking drug greatly raises the risk of suicide and should only be used as a last resort, doctors said last night.

They say patients who take Champix are also more prone to attempted suicide, suicidal thoughts and depression than those who use nicotine patches and gums.

Champix, which was prescribed more than one million times in Britain last year, has previously been linked to heart attacks, strokes, unprovoked violence and blackouts…” (excerpt ends).


That medication IS available here in Aotearoa NZ – under the name Champix and it is listed in the Medsafe Consumer Information Sheets about meds available for prescription here. Varenicline tartrate is another name by which this stuff is known.

http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/Consumers/cmi/c/champix.pdf , says in part that

“Champix has not been studied in patients with severe mental illnesses.”

I have been prescribed but never tried, another anti-smoking drug called Habitrol. Its available in both gum and lozenge form, so I’m told. I can’t find their Medsafe Consumers Data Sheets, but the Professionals Data Sheets, if anyone is interested, are at
http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/Datasheet/h/Habitrolgum.pdf and http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/Datasheet/h/Habitrollozenge.pdf.

I am not advocating or suggesting one brand or whatever in preference to the other, I just thought it was something we smokers might need to be more aware of. Not only for ourselves, but for whanau and friends.

Paddy.