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| Inmate Files Lawsuit Over Secondhand Smoke in Jail |
| By Santa Fe New Mexican |
| Published: 12/16/2002 |
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A civil complaint filed this week by an inmate might help force the operators of state prisons in New Mexico to pay closer attention to the effects of secondhand smoke on inmates. Tana Morris, a 30-year-old inmate at the Women's Correctional Facility in Grants, filed a civil complaint in state district court on Monday against the Department of Corrections and Bill Snodgrass, the warden of the Grants facility, seeking compensation for her current and future health problems she claims are the result of constant exposure to secondhand smoke in the prison. 'I have never even smoked even one cigarette in my life, and this 24-hour exposure to secondhand smoke is of grave concern to me ...,' Morris states in her complaint. Morris is currently serving a three-year sentence on forgery charges, according to the New Mexico State Judiciary Web site. Department of Corrections spokesman Gerges Scott said the Grants facility has its own smoking policy because it is operated privately by Corrections Corporation of America, but a telephone operator at the Grants facility said the jail follows the state's guidelines. Those guidelines, however, are vague. According to the Department of Correction's smoking policy, each facility - private or state-run - is to 'promulgate policy limiting smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco ... with the goal of eventually eliminating such use,' but the policy apparently does not currently require facilities to provide smoke-free areas for inmates. Morris' complaint alleges she is 'usually the only non-smoker' in her living areas in the facility, and the secondhand smoke caused her health problems from her first day in the jail - including nausea, migraine headaches and irritated eyes, nose and throat. It has also caused her to lose energy, she wrote. She added that numerous requests to be moved or to have a fan in her cell have been denied. A response to the lawsuit from the Department of Corrections has not yet been filed. |
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