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| Ban turns tobacco into prison prize |
| By Denver Post |
| Published: 10/20/2003 |
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A prison-made "rollie" cigarette has one-tenth the tobacco of a Marlboro, but in Colorado prisons, where a smoke is now contraband, it is a more lucrative commodity than cocaine. An $11 can of Bugler tobacco can generate $5,000 in sales of toilet-paper-rolled cigarettes in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Cocaine, by comparison, only sees an 800 percent markup behind bars. A black market for tobacco sprang up the day it was outlawed in Colorado prisons four years ago. The ban followed a national trend to stave off second-hand-smoke lawsuits by inmates. Since then, prisoners and prison staff members have conspired to smuggle tobacco into every prison in the state. Because nearly all of the state's 18,000 prisoners are smokers, everyone immediately recognized the potential. Since the tobacco ban, Bill Claspell, an investigator for the Colorado Department of Corrections' Office of Inspector General, and other officers have opened 154 criminal investigations and made dozens of arrests. Because tobacco is so easy to buy and smuggle into prison, it has become the top reason state corrections officers have been charged with crimes, with 18 officers, teachers and supervisors prosecuted in three years, prison officials say. Even though tobacco is outlawed, inmates smoke secretly - for example, in cells late at night when lights are turned down, and in steamy laundry rooms. A new subculture quickly evolved with dynamics similar to prohibition in the 1920s and '30s, which spawned a violent black market for liquor. |
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