Cigarettes and addiction

Insight is provided from the perspective of public health scientists who do not represent the Food and Drug Administration or other federal agencies that make it easier to get tobacco products, which cause dependence and disease, than to obtain potentially lifesaving drugs.

Abstract

of the Royal College of Psychiatrists has written that the bill represents "the worst of both worlds.The mentally ill will be subject to the power of 'arrest' and to no apparent purpose.Psychiatrists remain deeply sceptical and believe that the bill will not provide the extra public safety which the Government is hoping for.""At a recent meeting of the Parliamentary All Party Mental Health Group all professional, user, and other relevant bodies (except the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, representing carers) heavily criticised the bill.It is therefore opposed by nearly all the groups that will implement or be affected by aftercare under supervision.The bill legally tinkers when what is needed is radical revision of the Mental Health Act 1983 designed to take account of the massive change in the provision of psychiatric services towards the community."2It will fail in its stated purpose because it attempts to substitute legal rules for resources.It should be resisted and, if enacted, ignored.It removes civil rights without offering any appreciable clinical benefit and thus eschews any principle of reciprocity.12