Online Clinic News - Mental Patients Lose Right to Smoke

posted: Thursday, May 29, 2008 | Categories: Smoking

Three mental health patients have lost a case at the High Court to be allowed to smoke in the building and in the grounds of the high security mental health hospital where they live. The Judges ruled that patients would be endangering not just their own health but also the health of other residents and staff at Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire if they were allowed to smoke on the premises.

The three patients had argued that the ban on them smoking in their place of residence was a violation of their basic human rights. Lord Justice Pill, however, did not agree, citing evidence that smoking adversely affects both the health of smokers and those who inhale the second hand smoke. He regarded a complete ban as justified in the circumstances. He also added that it was right that smoking was also banned outside of the building and within the grounds of the hospital stating that many of the inmates were prone to violence and criminality.

In prisons, inmates are allowed to smoke in their own cells but not in communal areas and the prisoners that do smoke are encouraged to go to counselling to be given help to quit or to at least reduce the number of cigarettes that they smoke in a day.

The pro-smoking group Forest condemned the ruling as cruel, calling it a “petty bureaucratic decision” and argued that the hospital should have at least attempted to provide an area where the patients could have a cigarette if they chose to do so.

The three patients’ lawyers argued in court that a smoking ban at the hospital would mean that the patients would be the only people in the country who would not be allowed to have a cigarette “in the privacy of their own home."

The three patients have been denied permission to appeal against the ruling and the court has banned their identities from being revealed.

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