Smoking ban in detox clinics necessary?

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by Change | 11 Aug 2008

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Smoking bans are being introduced to countries around the world. Now addicts in rehab and detox clinics could be facing the same ban.

Derek Laughlin, a 40-year-old ex-crack addict from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, spent hours in treatment last year at Surrey, B.C., a short-term detox centre. However, he found the cravings unbearable and giving up smoking seemed all too much for him. He describes a memory he had during a staff-supervised walk around the block, "I'd be searching for cigarette butts wherever I could find them ... and stressing out over when I was going to get another smoke."

Canada is the next on the list to have entered the next revolution for smoking bans, by banning smoking in federal prisons, forensic psychiatric hospitals, and addiction facilities. However, this has caused a intense backlash amongst health practitioners. Their argument encapsulates the idea that actually it would be too difficult for patients addicted to drugs or alcohol to stop smoking while they are fighting a dependency on harder drugs that pose a more immediate threat to their health. Health practitioners therefore believe that it is more important to help them escape their addiction of hard drugs, rather than merely weaning patients off cigarettes.

However, there have been numerous studies that now demonstrate the enduring benefits of eliminating smoking at detox clinics. Patients who use nicotine patches or inhalers during their treatment for addiction have a better chance of overcoming their heroin and crack addictions.

Larson House, a short-term detox centre in Saskatoon's Pleasant Hill neighborhood, adheres to this way of treatment. Patients are banned from smoking once they check in and treatment for nicotine addiction was made available to all clients.

According to Michelle Robson, program manager for mental health and addiction services for the Saskatoon Health Region, "only a few clients opposed the policy change."

Many health officials take the view that it is negligent for health care providers not to address that smoking is the chief cause of avoidable death. But some are not converted, such as Lynne Sabo, director of the Regina Detox Centre, a non-profit facility that has not banned smoking. She points out that she has had many people travel to her clinic to receive treatment so they can get help while continuing to smoke. She doesn't believe in adopting such a restrictive measure that can potentially cause patients to abscond facilities before receiving appropriate treatment.

Ms Sabo take the view that "People aren't coming to detox to quit smoking. From my experience, smoking actually helps people with other withdrawals they're going through. Patients aren't checking in to a smoking detox. That's not our job"

There is no conclusion for the smoking ban dilemma. There is evidence of both short-term and long-term benefits when addicts are made to give up smoking while in rehabilitation. But the reality remains; given the more critical problem of detoxifying from hard drugs, banning smoking is not necessarily the answer.

Let the addict come off drugs initially

The addict has enough problems coming off their mind altering substances in the first couple of months of treatment. Taking their cigarettes away from them is maybe too much to ask while they are detoxing in rehab.

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