Jump to full article: Columbus (OH) Dispatch, 2010-03-02
Author: Alan Johnson THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Intro: A year after Ohio prisons instituted a cold-turkey smoking ban, taxpayers can expect to shell out a little less for medical care for inmates suffering from emphysema and other respiratory diseases.
But the ban - which includes chewing tobacco and snuff - also gave birth to a lucrative contraband market in state prisons. Sources said tobacco has become as valuable as marijuana, with a single cigarette selling for $10, a pack of cigarettes going for $200 and a can of loose tobacco for $300.
An indication of how hot a commodity tobacco has become came last month when officials uncovered a plan for a woman to secretly drop tobacco at the Governor's Residence in Bexley. Inmates working there planned to smuggle the tobacco back into the Pickaway Correctional Institution. The drop was scuttled by top State Highway Patrol officials.
Prison medical personnel said one out of three inmates with serious respiratory ailments, such as emphysema, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, have shown marked improvement in the year since the ban took effect.
That led to lower use of inhalant drugs over a three-month period - a savings of $90,000.
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