The profiteers of alcohol, tobacco, fat, sugar & sedentary
life disgust me. Regular ritualised smoke breaks look like dangerous sources of
encouragement to become dependent on tobacco. Premature deaths of patients in
psychiatric hospitals are immensely disturbing. I share aspirations thatpatients will stop lining their lungs with tar and the pockets of profiteerswith pennies.
In fact I would like to eradicate unhealthy food, sleeping
during the day, sitting around watching TV, failing to get an education, failing
to work, reading tabloids and consuming psychoactive substances. I think all
that might create utopian Mental Health Centres of excellence, if we agreed to
never offer anyone the opportunity of discharge into the real world. If we disproportionately
ban things from our hospitals we detach our services from society.
I was going to look into the references claiming that the vanguard
of smoking bans reduced violence, discouraged cannabis use, increased therapy,
liberated nurses and improved respiratory functioning. I expected that
champions of research and evidence based medicine would only state these grand
claims if they were supported by robust peer reviewed large epidemiological
studies. Regrettably I couldn’t find any weighty data to offer sound
foundations for the flighty idea that banning tobacco can improve the quality
of therapeutic interventions and bring peace to violent wards.
More
significantly it seems inconsistent to have a Mental Health Act that safeguards
people from excessive restrictive practices by psychiatric services only to
restrict the freedom to make such a mundane choice that is rarely likely to be
sufficiently attributable to the nature or degree of any mental disorder. Don’t
ritualise smoke breaks and do offer people something better to do than smoke, but
don’t take out your disgust at tobacco peddlers on the 58,000 people detained
on the grounds of their mental health.
Next week this will be scrutinised at a Maudsley Debate. Speak now or forever don't inhale.
Next week this will be scrutinised at a Maudsley Debate. Speak now or forever don't inhale.
