Published: February 29, 2008 11:12 pm      

State’s prison system snuffs out tobacco use

CHARLESTON — The Great Inmate Smokeout is on across West Virginia’s penal system.

As of midnight Friday, the last drags were taken on cigarettes and convicts spat out that mouthful of tobacco juice.

“By the end of March, all facilities will be in compliance,” Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein said Friday, just hours before anyone in a prison uniform had to go cold turkey.

Mindful of medical costs associated with indulging, Rubenstein began working two years ago on a program to phase out tobacco use among inmates.

For several years, a no-smoking policy has been in force in the regional jail system.

“We’ve had a few legal challenges which we expected in a couple of circuit courts and the Supreme Court,” he said.

“Those have been denied. It was just what you would expect. Some certainly don’t like it, but we feel we’ve been proactive in what we’ve been doing. I don’t anticipate any major problems.”

Employees may continue to smoke, provided they go outdoors to designated areas.

That way, no smoke drifts inside the cells, jangling the nerves of convicts trying to stay unhooked.

Or, as Rubenstein put it, “We don’t want to do anything to rub anyone’s nose in it.”

Obviously, some inmates will find the new policy unfair, but he said the direction will bring some savings in the cost of running the prison system, considering the health problems linked to nicotine abuse.

“I’m told by one health provider of a conservative figure in excess of $500,000 a year,” Rubenstein said.

“That’s for the entire division.”

Rubenstein said the Division of Corrections has been offering smoking cessation and education in leading up to the smokeout, in tandem with the Department of Health and Human Resources.

As for patches and other aids in combating the standard withdrawal pains, he said these are being handled by the medical unit on an individual basis.

“We’re not going to be doing anything as far as handing out patches or anything of that nature,” he said.

“There has been some grumbling that we expected. But this is something we’ve been leading into over the past couple of years.”