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Mental hospital bans smoking long condoned for its patients 

As smoking was banned in more public places over the past decade, one of the state's most vulnerable populations was permitted to puff away: psychiatric patients at the Arizona State Hospital.

Exempted from ever-widening smoking bans, the hospital practically encouraged people with serious mental illnesses who live at the hospital to smoke. Up to 20 cigarette breaks a day were written into some patients' daily schedules.

That changed on July 1 when the entire campus of the hospital on Van Buren Street went tobacco-free. Residents, staff, visitors, vendors and all others who set foot on the Phoenix property are forbidden from lighting up.

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