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| Prison advocate fears smoking ban looms |
| By Kellee Nolan |
| Published: 04/06/2009 |
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A prisoner advocate has blasted health workers, accusing them of working to ban smoking in Australian prisons to the detriment of prisoners. Brett Collins, a former prisoner and now coordinator for the activist group Justice Action, told a Melbourne conference on prison health on Monday that the anti-smoking issue was "undermining the relationship between health officers and prisoners". Mr Collins said he believed governments were planning to ban smoking in prisons for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) reasons while portraying it as a prisoner health issue. "Don't say that you're doing this on behalf of the prisoners and don't present this as a health issue, because it's not ... it's an OHS issue," Mr Collins told fellow conference presenters and audience. Mr Collins said smoking bans had already been imposed on prisoners in some NSW mental health and forensic hospital facilities. "And they're the weakest of all, the ones who are sick, and they have no one to assist them and that's already begun ... shame." He said the prisoner movement had "no doubt" there would be an attempt to ban smoking in prisons across Australia. "And that will affect prisoners enormously, and we believe it's not being done for their good, it's being done for OHS reasons," he told AAP. Mr Collins said taking cigarettes away would "have prisoners howling". Rather than stopping smoking, it would lead to a new black market. "You have got to take into account the people themselves, you can't dictate behavioural change," he said. Health sector presenters at the conference rejected Mr Collins' argument, accusing him of attacking the wrong people. Justice Health NSW project manager Shani Prosser told the conference about 80 per cent of Australia's prisoners were smokers, compared with 17 per cent of the general population. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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