Cancer is the best way to die and we should stop trying to cure it, says doctor

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Dr Richard Smith said cancer gave sufferers time to say goodbye and pain could be endured through ‘love, morphine, and whisky'

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Cancer is the best way to die because it gives people the chance to come to terms with their own mortality, the former editor of the British Medical Journal has claimed.
Dr Richard Smith, an honorary professor at the University of Warwick, said that a protracted death allowed time to say goodbye to loved ones, listen to favourite pieces or music or poetry and leave final messages.
He claimed that any pain of dying could be made bearable through ‘love, morphine, and whisky.’
Writing in a blog for the BMJ, Dr Smith admitted that his view was 'romantic', but said charities should stop spending billions trying to find a cure for the disease because it was clearly the best option for an ageing population.
However Cancer Research UK claimed his comments were ‘nihilistic’ and gave little thought to young people whose lives are cut short by the disease.

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I often ask audiences how they want to die, and most people chose sudden death.
“That may be OK for you,” I say, “but it may be very tough on those around you, particularly if you leave an important relationship wounded and unhealed.
“Death from organ failure—respiratory, cardiac, or kidney—will have you far too much in hospital and in the hands of doctors.
“(And) the long, slow death from dementia may be the most awful as you are slowly erased.”
Dr Smith warned people to ‘stay away from overambitious oncologists’ and said that charities should stop wasting billions trying to cure the disease and ‘potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death.’

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