Hasbeen
On what case do you rest?

You have not made one relevant or cogent statement regarding the subject. "Smoking bans: A threat to mental health".

All you have done is troll the forum providing us with irrelevant anecdotes, logical fallacies and personal attacks.

To rest a case you must first make a case.

Instead of attacking my argument you have decided to attack me personally. I am not the issue and insults are the ammunition of those to unintelligent to make an argument for their case.

In regards to your Ad hominem attack in which you claim that arrogance flows from my key board.
It’s only arrogance if you are wrong.

Maybe you need some time to go away and think a bit more deeply on the issue.

I challenge you to engage in a logical and rational debate on the issue or stop trolling and take your bat and ball and go home.

Individual.
In regards to your second last post. I can understand how that can happen. No harm done.
In regards to your last post all I can say is “one swallow does not a summer make”
There are good and bad people in all professions. Being a Doctor will never make one infallible. Highly educated and intelligent people are often shown to be experts in rationalising bad ideas.

James08

That was such a Gish gallop

The Gish Gallop is an informal name for a debating technique that involves drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood that has been raised. Usually this results in many involuntary twitches in frustration as the opponent struggles just to decide where to start. It is named after creationism activist and professional debater Duane Gish.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallo

How about someone provide try to privide a solution to my hypothetical? As this is the type of reality that health professional have to deal with on a daily basis.
It is a cheap shot to say that the people working in the system are little dictators obsessed with control.
When I think you will actually find that most health professional try to take a utilitarian approach.

*Rhys* had you both read and understood what I have previously stated you would realise that I had not advocated for denying *In Patients* a smoke.

(and I would refer you to my previous posts.)

However, as the thread is at risk of derailing into an over focus on the issue of cigarettes more generally, ..

*GadPhli*

I would think that if an individual is considered to be at risk of either harming themselves or others, then not only will they be deprived of their personal liberty, but they will also be forbidden from having access to anything that they may be able to do further harm with, such as a cigarette.

In the case of that state of consciousness that we refer to as psychois, as well as other extreme states, the medics can never be entirely sure thhat an individual in such a state is not capable of doing harm, to the extent that for better or worse, for right or for wrong, most individuals concerned are at tleast temporarily deprived of their rights in toto, which includes, alas for some, smoking ciggi's.

Further, *In Patients* are likely to be "limit tested" upon first arrival, and if they give trouble, strapped down in with a chemical straight jacket (something like AcuPhase) at which point it they will be largely disinterested in most things for a while, and would be an ideal time to slap on a patch or two, and when they are ready after some days for the antidote, and when they have otherwise earned the privilege, then they may again have a "cancer death stick" at that time. However, most certainly not before ...

(which will probably make them o.d. on nicotine and begin the process of negative reinforcement. With the later addition of gum (and some people stay on the nicotine gum for ever) the individual concerned will be on the way to a healthy withdrawal.)

Gadphli,
I think all that Hasbeen is trying to point out is the arrogance of presuming that you have the right to deprive another person of their rights on the basis that they are mentally ill (remember that the mentally ill are the only people in the entire country being forced to stop smoking).
I cannot understand how people who purport to have worked in this area, believe that it is just fine to increase the suffering experienced by these people.
As a Mental Health Nurse, I believe that a primary part of my role is to decrease suffering and provide comfort. This policy forces me to do the opposite.
Unfortunately, we inevitably have to provide some restrictions on people just to keep them safe. However, the only restrictions that should be applied are those that are clinically necessary. Any extra infringement of their liberty is unjustified. There is seldom a clinical necessity to prevent someone smoking (perhaps if they were actively burning themselves with the cigarette something I have only rarely encountered over the past twenty years). In fact, the physiological effects of nicotine withdrawal include anxiety, depression, agitation, and insomnia. These are all things we would ordinarily like to limit rather than intentionally induce.
Someone mentioned the phrase "first do no harm". That is exactly right.
Forcing a person to stop smoking at this time only increases their suffering and so causes them harm.

Gadphli wrote: I have no problem with smoking when it does not effect other people. As in the privacy of your own home

If an individual is taken forcibly from the privacy of their own home and relocated to a facility that must now become their 'home', must their right & freedom to smoke be forfeited? This is an essential point of the current argument and a matter of Human Rights.

You also posed the question:
why should the tiny outdoor areas that are provided for people in some mental health facilities be filled with the lingering stench of tobacco smoke?

They shouldn't!
In my original post I posed the question: is it beyond the imagination of hospitals to provide a well ventilated, secure smoking area outside the bounds of the ward? This could be achieved if there was the will to do so.

As to your hypothetical, I'd recommend harm minimisation as the guiding principle & in this instance, I (a non-smoker) would give the girl a smoke. What would you do?

The imposition of smoking bans in locked psychiatric facilities is just another misguided attempt at Prohibition. Have we learned nothing from previous attempts by albeit well-meaning authorities who have imposed prohibitions of one kind or another in the past? Just how far will the authority figures in these facilities go to ensure compliance with these restrictions? Just how far will the inpatients go to circumvent the prohibition in order to have a smoke?

These bans are too simplistic a response to a complex issue. They are authoritarian and just plain inhumane dressed up in the guise of a positive health measure.

Overall, and on balance which health outcomes will be most beneficial to the patients in the short and the long term?

I do feel for the plight of the nurses who have to face the difficulties that arise in whichever circumstance - Smoke or No Smoke. Therefore the need to view the situation in locked psychiatric facilities as a special case that warrants special attention and management, in order to achieve the best outcome for all. It may take some imagination and it will take some money but it CAN be done!