Community sector mental health organisations say the plan allege the Health Directorate had gone to extraordinary lengths to overcome resistance.

The Canberra Times revealed last month health authorities were pushing ahead with their plan to enforce a total smoking ban at all ACT Health campuses, including mental health treatment centres, despite concerns from the Official Visitor and the Health Services Commissioner.

Mental Health Consumers Network executive officer Dalane Drexler described the policy yesterday as ''dangerous and scary'' and said it amounted to ''cruel and unusual punishment'' for people facing long-term confinement for mental health treatment.

''We absolutely support consumers who want to quit smoking, we absolutely support the directorate for putting in programs to support consumers to quit by choice when they are well but we are opposed to an outright ban that will hurt people when they are at their most vulnerable when they enter treatment,'' Ms Drexler said.

The mental health advocate said she believed health staff were also concerned about the consequences of an outright ban.

''The staff have come forward and they have concerns that people will get quite upset when they can't have a cigarette,'' she said.

Ms Drexler said she and other community groups were unhappy with the outcome of working groups to discuss the issue in the lead-up to the opening to the new Adult Mental Health unit at the Canberra Hospital, which was initially scheduled as a non-smoking facility.

''They were trying to get consensus around the table for making the AMH unit a smoke-free unit but they couldn't get consensus either from us or from two other community organisations either,'' she said.

Ms Drexler said the ACT Health employees outnumbered sector representatives by three-to-one and used their numbers to overcome dissent.

Health Minister Katy Gallagher was taking a more conciliatory approach yesterday, saying there remained much work to be done on smoking in mental hospitals.

''In the move toward the new mental health unit, it was decided that we would set a date to go to a non-smoking environment and work with all the stakeholders and then work to see how that could be done in practice,'' she said.

''There's an issue that we've been dealing with in all tobacco control measures which is how to protect people who don't want to smoke while allowing people to smoke and we have banned it all in other workplaces except other settings where people are held against their will. But the fact is, these are workplaces.''

Ms Gallagher, who believes that health-care staff are supportive of a ban, said she had ordered more research on the problem but that she was ''not walking away'' from the January 1 implementation date.

''It's complicated, I've got to look after the needs of staff but I'm mindful of the people who are in there and their need to smoke, particularly when you have high levels of smoking,'' the Chief Minister said.