Hi there,

Have a look at this email I sent in response to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. This is a major newspaper in a capital city in Australia.......I tell you, legislation makes my blood boil......The pollies are trying to ban smoking from all mental health facilities.......no designated areas, no taking the patient outside for a smoke.......basically they will restrain and heavily sedate the patient during withdrawal. What happened to civil liberties!!! All in the name of a bloody cigarette. Read on........tell me what you think.


To Whom This May Concern,

Well, well what a revolting concept. I agree with Dr Alvaro Manove, who wrote that piece in the SMH, "Stopping Mentally Ill People from Smoking is Cruel", March 20, 2009.

I speak from personal experience. I am a mentally ill person who has had many admissions into a psychiatric facility in Brisbane, Queensland. I have to say, that we had designated areas within the complex to smoke. Voluntary and involuntary patients had the same liberties.

To think that a severely impaired person, suffering from psychosis for example, could possibly process the withdrawal from nicotine in the name of
"political correctness" is beyond me. You only have to look at a large amount of people trying to give up smoking(which is a choice, mind you) and they, being "normal people" suffer intense headaches, moodiness, agitation, anger, anxiety and grief. I am not saying that all people suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms, but most people I have talked to have wrestled with this addiction like a well-meaning crocodile. Now add that to a severe psychotic episode!!

While someone is in terrible physical and mental anguish do you think that the obvious downside to smoking is really at the forefront of their long-term
well-being? Give me a break! Most patients struggle with what day it is, let alone "Is this cigarette killing me? No, this severe depressive episode is likely to kill me first!!

Let them smoke, for goodness sake! it is cruel and unusual punishment to remove a legal dependancy that provides some relief in this horrendous time. I have also found that smoking is the only vice that recovering alcoholics or drug addicts have. Don't torture them further by taking away the only thing they feel they have left........believe me, I have been told by patients that their pouch of tobacco and their tiny blue lighter is all that remains of their life outside.

Send some of those NSW politicians or policy makers in to TALK to patients........they will see a very different view from their privileged, bigoted, narrow-minded positions. Once they see the anguish and mental torture people go through in a psychiatric facility, they will be compelled beyond their understanding to provide the "cancer stick" that they, in their infinite wisdom, were prepared to deny!!

Yours sincerely,

Michah Hadley
Queensland