__ Canada Prisons Ban Smoking Nationwide! __
Reality_CheckŠ
Posted By Ian Elliot Whig-Standard Staff Writer
Posted 1 day ago
Canada's federal prisons are set to go totally smoke-free at the end of
April.
The Correctional Service of Canada instituted an indoor ban on smoking in
2006, and at the end of next month will expand that ban to inmates smoking
in prison yards as well as staff smoking anywhere on the grounds.
The national director of the John Howard Society questions the move,
pointing out that while tobacco is socially frowned upon, it is still legal,
and inmates are supposed to be allowed to take part in legal activities like
any other Canadian, less the loss of freedoms they suffer due to
incarceration.
"I personally think smoking is a dreadful habit, but it's one of the few
pleasures, if I can put it that way, that their situation affords," Craig
Jones said from his west-end Kingston office.
While smoking was officially banned in cellblocks on health and safety
grounds as it is a workplace for guards and other correctional employees, he
questioned the justification for banning smoking in the open air.
He also noted that the policy could create management issues for guards with
large numbers of inmates suffering withdrawal when the ban takes effect.
Corrections says it will offer smoking cessation aids and substitutes to
inmates and staff who request it.
Jason Godin, Ontario president of the union that represents guards, said
that the indoor smoking ban introduced two years ago was being widely
flouted by inmates and that a full prohibition of tobacco was the only way
to enforce a ban.
Prisons are federal buildings, he noted, and the anti-smoking provisions are
the same as those that exist in any other government institution.
"This is no different than any other federal workplace in the country," he
said.
He noted front-line guards were at highest risk of exposure to second-hand
smoke, as were inmates who have already butted out, and said prohibiting
smoking was in no way different than prohibiting consumption of other
products, such as booze.
"Tobacco may be a legal substance on the street, but so is drinking alcohol,
and we don't sell alcohol in our canteens."
The smoking ban will likely affect long-term prisoners and lifers more than
new arrivals.
Ontario's prisons, including the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, went
smoke-free in 2001, and are one of seven provinces whose jails are
completely tobacco-free, although contraband cigarettes remain an issue for
staff.
As most inmates serve several months or even years in provincial pre-trial
custody, most have already gone through the cold-turkey process by the time
they arrive at the gates of a federal institution to serve sentences of two
years or more.
Don Ford, an official with the union that represents the province's prison
guards, said the transition to smoke-free went much more smoothly in the
jails than many people, including the guards themselves, had feared.
"Surprisingly, it went better than we thought it would," he said yesterday,
noting that besides smoking cessation kits, jails supplied the inmates with
more snacks that helped take the edge off nicotine cravings immediately
after the prohibition went into effect.
He said there is still tobacco being smuggled inside and used as jailhouse
currency, but said staff would rather try to police illegally smuggled
tobacco than drugs or other more dangerous contraband within the
institutions.
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