BECKLEY, WV - Smoking in West Virginia's 16 prisons and 11 juvenile facilities is being snuffed out as part of an effort to provide a healthier environment for inmates.

Starting Saturday, inmates and prison employees will only be able to use tobacco products outdoors. By July 1, 2007, corrections officials hope to have a totally smoke-free environment.

“We're going to get the message across as positively as possible and enforce it,” said Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein.

The original plan was to impose a tobacco-free policy for the entire prison system this year, but some lawmakers feared unrest if inmates were forced to quit cold turkey.

“We're just going to proceed a little slower,” Rubenstein said. “Are we going to have some folks who aren't going to do that? Some violations? Absolutely. We're going to have some violations. We realize that.”

Officials have estimated that a tobacco ban would save West Virginia about $400,000 a year in inmate medical costs and another $60,000 to $80,000 in dental-related expenses.

West Virginia has one of the highest rates of adult smoking in the nation at 27.3 percent, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources' latest behavioral risk study.

The number of smokers and smokeless tobacco users among the inmates in the state's prisons was not immediately available.

The policy doesn't affect the state's regional jails, which have been smoke free for a decade.

The ban follows a nationwide trend to prohibit all tobacco products in correctional facilities. Federal prisons are smoke free and 38 other states have adopted smoke free or partial smoke free protection policies, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

Other health initiatives being pursued by prison officials include classes on diet, cholesterol and exercise.

“We're just going into the entire healthy lifestyle type of thing,” said Rubenstein. “We're going to try to encompass that whole big picture over the next year as well.”