Vermont Reviews Prison Smoking Ban

The nation’s only full-scale ban on smoking in prison brought on far more dangerous side effects than the jitters of nicotine withdrawal, forcing state officials to ease the five-month-old restrictions.

A thriving black market pushed the price of cigarettes in jail to $40 a pack. Some inmates used threats and violence to get them, while others reportedly traded sexual favors or prescription drugs for a smoke.

“They have increased the stress factors in here astronomically,” said Dana Eaton, an inmate at the Northwest Correctional Facility in St. Albans. “We have guys in here who are even smoking coffee and Tang, they are that desperate.”

Corrections Commissioner John Gorczyk responded by announcing that smoking would be allowed outdoors in designated areas.

“We achieved our objective of clean air and smoke-free facilities,” he said.

Vermont imposed the statewide ban in July to counter indoor air pollution problems and to head off lawsuits by nonsmoking inmates.

Other states have designated no-smoking wings, and Maine officials are having trouble getting prisoners to go to a new facility with many amenities--except smoking.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule next year on a Nevada inmate’s claim that secondhand tobacco smoke unlawfully threatens his health. A federal appeals court ruled that exposure to secondary smoke can be a constitutional violation if it poses an unreasonable health risk.

Richard Turner, director of the Vermont division of correctional services, confirmed inmate allegations of strong-arming for cigarettes in the state’s six overcrowded prisons and two county lockups.

“That predatory behavior ranges from somebody having to deliver money to verbal pressure to physical,” he said, adding that it also occurs with illicit drugs, alcohol and knives.

“I’m not hearing a rampant sex thing going on, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility,” he added.

Turner said the department will continue encouraging inmates to quit smoking. An estimated 80% of inmates smoked before the ban; there are no figures on the number who quit.

A smoker himself, Eaton kept track of how smokers were getting their cigarettes. Those without something to trade or money to buy a $3 cigarette became part of the black market, he said.

Prison guards, also forbidden to smoke in the jails, allegedly were the primary source of contraband. Gorczyk and Turner acknowledged a few incidents in which guards were caught smuggling cigarettes.

“It’s a problem when there’s that much money to be made on a substance that’s legal right outside the building,” said Gorczyk, whose own efforts to give up smoking have not gone well.

Heinz Arenz, superintendent of the St. Albans facility, gave up cigarettes in anticipation of the ban.