Commentary: coping with nicotine addiction in the psychiatric hospital

Smoking is an all too common practice. Mounting evidence compels us to see it as an addiction rather than the habit we have conveniently called it. The injurious effect smoking has on the health and life span of hundreds of thousands of people annually is unquestioned. The negative effect nicotine has on the metabolism of medications we commonly use in psychiatry is becoming increasingly known. The call by the American Medical Association to ban all advertising of tobacco also compels our attention as physicians. This paper deals with these matters, and describes the issues considered as well as the preliminary measures taken in a psychiatric hospital to combat nicotine addiction.