In Canada, mental illness carries a cost to the economy of over $50 billion annually. The number of people missing work due to a mental illness is 500,000 on any given day. When people with mental illness work in supportive environments their quality of life improves.

Patients in hospital are often receiving drug therapy and having the proper dose of medications that are optimally effective with minimal side effects determined. They are not allowed to smoke and then they are discharged and resume smoking at the same level as before hospitalization. As Dr O'Reilly pointed out, "the resumption of smoking can interfere with the effectiveness of their antipsychotic medication dose."