Published: July 13, 2008 10:35 pm         

Prison smoke ban impractical, lawmaker says

Perry: Study shows smoking by inmates has ‘calming effect’

CHARLESTON — The intent was to get inmates unhooked from tobacco and, over the long haul, lower West Virginia’s medical bills by not having to treat them for nicotine-related illnesses.

Yet, if letters sent by inmates to media and one legislative leader are accurate, the smoking ban isn’t working.

Cigarettes have become the hot new item of contraband, and it’s a seller’s market in the black market behind prison walls.

Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette, a co-chairman of the Legislature’s Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Authority, thinks inmates should be able to indulge in West Virginia prisons, providing some variations can be found in bans imposed in counties where the facilities are located.

He has one word for the ban imposed by Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein last March 1 — “impractical.”

“I have received similar information (from inmates), that the price for a cigarette in prison is greater now than what the price was for illegal drugs, that it’s just not working,” Perry said.

Perry referred to a study performed in Kentucky that suggested smoking by inmates was a form of relief from the pressures of being cooped up in cells.

“It had a calming effect,” the delegate said, summarizing the findings.

“There was an indirect, I won’t say medical value, but indirect value achieved. You’ve got a population where there’s only so much release they can have as well as employees. Employees are under the same intense pressure cooker as everyone else. By the same token, adherence would be expected until at such time some variation or some exceptions would be permissible legally within county codes.”

Perry and his fellow panelists on the interims committee are awaiting a report this month from Rubenstein on various smoking bans imposed in counties where correctional facilities are located.

For instance, one in Fayette County, which embraces Mount Olive Correctional Complex, forbids smoking on any public property. Presumably, it would mean that even employees couldn’t light up on the grounds of MOCC. That ordinance is on hold, however, until Oct. 1.

Rubenstein is scheduled to spell out before Perry’s committee in the July 27-29 interims just how each county smoking ordinance is applicable to the prisons they embrace within their jurisdictions.

“It would seem to indicate they would,” Perry said. “That’s why the question was asked. The inquiry was made to see if any variations to that are allowable or not allowable. That’s why the clarification is being sought.”

Although a nonsmoker, Perry says he can understand why smoking inmates think the policy is one-sided, since they are denied access to nicotine but correctional officers and other employees may continue to smoke on the job.

“My feel is that it (policy) needs to be reasonably applied and take into consideration both constituencies, or both parties — smokers and nonsmokers,” he said.

“Should a smoker impose his values on a smoker and should a nonsmoker impose his values on a smoker? I think that things need to be written and facilitated so as to identify both populations.”

Perry doesn’t believe, however, that the committee can override Rubenstein’s policy.

And that’s where the individual smoking ordinances will come into play.

“I think the county ordinances need to be looked at and there need to be variations and exceptions for individual situations,” he said.

“I don’t think you can make one policy, or one variance, that covers everything. You can’t put it all under one umbrella.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com