Prohibition Works As Well Inside CA Prisons As It Does Outside

Back in July 2005, cigarettes were banned in California prisons in a move intended to improve inmate health.

Only problem is, prohibition of tobacco hasn't eliminated it from prisons -- it's just driven the price through the roof. And -- just like in the world outside prison -- prohibition has encouraged more violence and corruption around the drug.

Jeremiah Marquez of the Associated Press reports that a pack of smokes now costs as much as $125 behind bars.

Prison officials who already have their hands full keeping drugs and weapons away from inmates now are spending time tracking down tobacco smugglers, some of them guards and other prison employees. Fights over tobacco have broken out -- at one prison, guards had to use pepper spray to break up a brawl among 30 inmates.

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At California Correctional Center in Lassen County, officials reported more than 60 tobacco offenses among inmate crews at the institution's work camps in December, Associate Warden Matt Mullin said. The same month, cigarettes triggered a brawl among 30 inmates on a high-security yard. Follow-up interviews with inmates revealed the dispute was over control of tobacco sales.

At the fortress-like Pelican Bay State Prison, a felon sneaked back on to prison grounds hours after being paroled. He was found with a pillowcase of almost 50 ounces of rolling tobacco -- worth thousands of dollars on the black market. The plan was to throw it over the facility's fence.

``It's almost becoming a better market than drugs,'' said Devan Hawkes, an anti-gang officer at Pelican Bay. ``A lot of people are trying to make money.''