Where's There's No Smoke, There's a California Prison

On Tuesday, the California Assembly (one half of our bicameral legislature... we call it an Assembly instead of a House of Representatives) overwhelmingly passed legislation that would -- if passed by the Senate and signed by der Groppenfuhrer -- ban smoking in prisons. According to Assemblyman Tim Leslie (R-Tahoe City), half the state's 160,000 prisoners smoke and getting them to quit could pare hundreds of millions of dollars from the nearly $1 billion a year that taxpayers spend on prison healthcare.

I want to commend Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), Patty Berg (D-Eureka), Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburg) and Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). They were the only four members of the 80-member Assembky who voted against the bill (though 12 didn't vote at all).

These laws -- which are becoming commonplace -- are ridiculous, for a number of reasons. First, letting prisoners smoke gives them something to do, and it keeps them satiated. Second, any money saved on prison healthcare has got to be balanced out by the cost of [a] helping these inmates quit (nicotine patches, for example), [b] dealing with the increased agitation resulting from prisoners who've smoked for years suddenly not being allowed to. Furthermore, new prisoners who smoked when they were on the outside will have to acclimate to a nicotine-free life, in addition to all the sodomy.

"Sure, you can take it in the ass, but you can't have a smoke when you're done," say the lawmakers.

Banning smoking in restaurants and buildings and stadiums is a good idea, but banning smoking in a place where people can't go outside is a bad bad bad idea.

"There is a certain concern there because you are suddenly withdrawing people from a drug. The population obviously is going to be agitated and so is the staff," said Ruth Ann Ogle, president of the Maryland Classified Employees Association, which represents about 3,000 correctional workers.

Comments

[JFOR]

Ah...good ole anal rape...

[Andrew Spark]

I think smoking makes the lung weak and susptible to a range of chest disease including tuberculosis and asthma etc.