INMATES WILL FACE BAN ON SMOKING

Corrections plans to offer nicotine patches in top-security

Inmates of B.C.'s six maximum-security provincial jails will soon be
offered nicotine patches instead of cigarettes.

The Corrections Branch confirmed yesterday that smoking will be
completely banned in the secure facilities -- indoors and outdoors --
starting Nov. 1.

It's the branch's way of coping with new Workers Compensation Board
guidelines that go into effect Jan 1. The regulations ban smoking in
all indoor workplaces throughout the province.

``We've been given no indication there'll be any kind of exemption or
amendment to that,'' said branch spokesman Sheldon Green.

Most workplaces will be able to allow their employees and clients to
smoke outside. But that won't work where security and logistics rule
it out, said Green.

Green said the majority of in-mates in the province's six
maximum-security prison are smokers.

The new rules will apply only to the six secure facilities, most of
which are entirely enclosed and where prisoners are almost never
allowed outside.

They will not apply to minimum- and medium-security facilities where
prisoners are allowed outdoors in work gangs or can head outside for a
cigarette.

Some, such as the Vancouver Pretrial Centre, have almost no outdoor
spaces at all. Others, such as Prince George, are open only when the
weather permits.

Green admitted there may be problems initially as large numbers of
inmates undergo tobacco withdrawal at the same time.

``It does present some challenges,'' he said, ``but none that we don't
think are manageable.''

Some U.S. states, such as Oregon, have already implemented such bans
in their prisons without too much trouble, he said.

The six secure facilities will all offer nicotine patches to inmates,
purchased on prescription and with their own money.

Green said the ban will be phased in. Beginning Nov. 1, cigarettes
will no longer be sold in jail commissaries. Two weeks later, smokes
will be declared contraband and seized if found, but there won't be
any penalties until Dec. 1.

Robert Gordon, the director of the School of Criminology at Simon
Fraser University, predicted that ``it's going to be a nightmare for
the staff.''

He also predicted that banning tobacco will create a black market in
jails, where inmates will have cigarettes smuggled in much the way
they now do with drugs.