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Prison Tobacco Ban Coming

South Burlington, Vermont - May 19, 2003

Vermont Corrections officials are finalizing plans for a total tobacco ban in state prisons. It's been more than a decade since Vermont inmates could smoke in their cells. That was back in the days when the inmates and the guards could smoke virtually anywhere inside state prisons.

But that all changed in March 1992 when Corrections authorities attempted what was considered, at the time, a revolutionary move. They imposed a total ban on tobacco at the state's seven prisons. Corrections employees who smoked protested bitterly and, for inmates, the price of contraband cigarettes soared to five dollars each, triggering violence. The ban was scrapped after just one month. It was not a total failure. Smoking was limited to outdoor areas only.

Now, eleven years later, corrections officials say they are drawing up new plans for a total tobacco ban that would go into effect this fall. It would apply only to inmates and state employees at the state prisons. It would not apply to all other corrections employees and inmates on furlough, probation or parole.

More than twenty states and the federal system have successfully imposed total tobacco bans in their prison systems since Vermont made its first attempt in 1992. State officials say their new plan will adopt many elements of these successful programs.

Brian Joyce - Channel 3 News