When Labour was trying to sell legislation making bars smoke-free it made the mistake of promoting it as a measure to reduce smoking.
I agreed it would and had no argument with the policy. But it would have been much easier to sell, and been less likely to be criticised as a nanny-state measure if it had been promoted as protecting the health of staff.
That’s what Corrections Minister Judith Collins has done with the plan to ban smoking by prisoners.
While tobacco is legal, people have the right to smoke it but that right is trumped by other people’s right to breathe smoke-free air.
I’ve never been tempted to try smoking and can’t understand why anyone would, but I do understand that once you have and are addicted it is very difficult to stop.
But anyone addicted to alcohol or illegal drugs has to go cold-turkey if they go to prison. Would it be any harder for smokers than it is for other addicts?
There’s a wide range of opinions on the merits of this policy. At one end of the spectrum it’s been described as an abuse of human rights, at the other people are saying prison isn’t supposed to be fun and if a smoking ban makes it harder that’s a good thing.
Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon wasn’t opposed to the idea although he did raise concerns about safety if prisoners got angry.
The biggest selling point for me is that it might reduce the rate of imprisonment:
A smoking ban at a prison on Britain’s Isle of Man had become a deterrent for reforming criminals who couldn’t face prison terms without smoking, Mr Semenoff said.
The drop in crime has been reported by British media, including the Telegraph, which said the crime rate on the island had fallen by 14 per cent and burglary by 35 per cent.
“It’s a standing joke now that when we nick someone we remind them that if they get sent down they’ll have to come off the cigarettes – their faces are a picture,” a police source told the newspaper in December.
“It’s like they are more scared about giving up smoking than a criminal record and some time in the nick.”
If not being able to smoke in prison deterred people from committing crimes which would send them there it’s worth a try because nothing else seems to be working.
Homepaddock 
I see it very simply HP> When you put yourself in a position where you are incarcerated in prison you abrogate your rights and there is no reason why that should not include smoking.
As you say it should have nothing to do with the health of corrections staff.
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Just another example of lefty wowserism from the Nats.
Smoking is bad for the person who smokes but not for anybody else, despite or the wailing about “passive smoking”.
And smoking is a great stress reliever – which is why in WW2 soldiers were issued with cigarettes in their field rations.
And it is also why people in prisons and psychiatric patients are great consumers of tobacco, because these are people under stress.
And anybody with half a functioning brain cell should realize that banning tobacco in prison will only lead to another item of contraband to be traded and more problems for the prison staff.
If tobacco is an unmitigated evil, as the ash fanatics seem to believe, then outlaw it altogether for everybody – these half measures which have a large impact on the vulnerable but not on those whose lives are going well are nanny statism at its worst
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My older brother was issued with cigarettes along with the rest of the gear when he joined the Navy in the ’50s. Of course, the ships were not smoke free and he can remember the confined spaces where they lived and breathed smoke even if they weren’t smoking themselves.
Now, after two years of treatment, including radiation therapy for lung cancer, he wishes there had been a more enlighted attitude to people’s health and well-being.
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The “effects on staff” bit is a red herring. Nobody is forced to work for an employer who allows smoking on the premises. Coasean bargaining applies.
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Imprisonment is the sanction of removal of freedom from the citizen. Adding smoking is only different in that it is removal of a previously permitted right. Anecdotal evidence tells me that prisons are often a haze of cigarette smoke and removing that has to be of benefit to non smokers, inmates and staff alike. Removal of the right to the paraphanalia of tobacco smoking will allow easier control of smoking other substances.
If your information on the Isle Of Man is accurate then that is another bonus except it is predicated on intelligence and comprehension skills that may be absent here.
Threats of violence and other opposition only strengthens my belief that Ms Collins is on track and “Plugheads” attempt to be noticed in the media only gives further confirmation of that.
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For goodness sake GD – they banned smoking in California prisons 5 years ago and the crime rate in California keeps going up – while tobacco smuggling into prisons becomes just another lucrative trade.
Why the Isle of Man was bought up is because it is a small place with an insignificant crime rate and diddly people in prison in the first place
As a result the crime rate can there vary wildly from year to year – without the actual number of crimes being committed being much different. The Isle Man suits the cause so it is invoked by an unscrupulous politician with an agenda – to mislead well meaning folk such as yourself and Ele.
In fact using statistics from the Isle of Man as justification should alert you to political slight of hand and shennagins.
I want politicians to make public policy on the basis of robust scientific data – not distortions from lobby groups.
I would love to know just how much taxpayers money goes down the toilet each year funding crap studies to be used to create public policy that allows unelected bureaucrats to interfere in peoples daily existence.
OK prisoners are an easy target, and this is a win in the eyes of the “flog em, hang em brigade” but it an example of the insidious creep of government into the lives of ordinary people as the whole smoke free act was – and as new alcohol laws will be and any other number of laws and regulations about what can and cannot go into foodstuffs and what must eg the folic acid bread fortification thing which National in a rare moment of rationality and sanity put on hold.
I know its a lost cause – people are innumerate and public policy will continue to be made on the basis of numbers plucked from the thin air or tortured out of data by dubious statistical methods, if we a lucky.
Its Orwellian to be sure.
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Ban, ban, ban, that’s all you people seem to do!
In the face of a problem – authoritarian SLAM!
Neanderthal responses to complex problems evoke violent reactions, simmering frustrations and trnasference of ills from one point to another.
Good luck with this one.
You’ll not do well from it.
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RG and andrei My anti stateism and right of center creds are well known to my realtime acquaintances and I am surprised they are a mystery to you here in the ether.
Our government has on going liability with Agent orange, asbestos, PCP and many more chemical problems that have grown out of history from lack of understanding of downstream consequences and here we have, IMO well documented evidence (and very personal observations) of the consequences of ingested chemicals from tobacco smoke. I, with my privately held view of the equipment to be standard issue for cells of a rickety stool and a rope hanging from a secure hook in the ceiling, for exercise of course, would have little trouble on my conscience if it should be misused, do not consider tobacco use by inmates to be a problem for users. However non smoking inmates and prison staff should not be expected to have to ingest the poisons.
Andrei, I am not promoting the removal of tobacco smoke from the prison environment as a further punishment but see a responsibility for its removal on health grounds. Additional benefits will come from the removal of lighters and matches and the improved chances of denying to inmates of cannabis use. If I was advocating mass medication of the prison population to make running prisons easier you would attack me for that.
I take your criticism of my use of the Manx prisons as possibly valid but don’t accept your claim that tobacco removal is a cause if increased prison numbers.
RG my real response to your rubbish involves sex and travel.
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GD – your command illustrates your love for authoritarian management beautifully and adds credence to my claim that the politicians that you support are similarly inclined.
‘Crusher’ Collins, anyone?
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RG Your use of a boring, unimaginative, done to death, derogatory nickname for The Hon Ms Judith Collins would reveal the paucity of credible rebuttal by debate for your nonsensical rant. My respect for the host of this great blog prevented me from using the shortened form of my suggestion for your next move.
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Gee GD I didn’t say that banning smoking in prisons increased prison numbers. Banning smoking in prisons almost certainly will have no effect one way or the other.
Our government has on going liability with Agent orange, asbestos, PCP and many more chemical problems that have grown out of history from lack of understanding of downstream consequences All junk science scams = excepting perhaps asbestos for which the risks have been vastly over stated.
Agent orange for example was a scare born from Hanoi in 1964 when the communists wanted to counter the successful use of herbicides to clear the edges of roadsides to prevent ambush.
It backfired on them because their own people believed it and refused to operate in sprayed areas.
But it also found fertile ground amongst new agey types and commie sympathisers who whined and wailed and sucked you into believing it.
But despite forty years of study of people exposed to high doses of “deadly dioxins” the only disease definitivly linked to them is chloroacne
This man has the highest ever know dose of
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, the supposedly most deadly and in the photo you can see the result.
But he is still with us but I’m sure that when he dies of whatever sees him off there will be many who will ascribe it to the effects of “dioxin”.
Its pure superstition at work my friend.
Superstition exploited by politicians to pander.
And this is my objection in a nutshell – National is pandering to the left and dumping on its natural supporters with this type of pandering, although in this case its a win win because Judith Collins is pandering to the Law and order sect, as well as the nannys, who probably do lean to the Nats.
But it is bad policy and philosophically wrong – unless you outlaw tobacco altogether, which is what would happen if it was a new product – but it ‘aint, its been part of our culture for four hundred years or so and received a real boost during the second world war because it served a useful purpose or was perceived to anyway.
And for all anybody knows it might have some beneficial effects on both the cultural and personal level for some individual smokers.
We need a party of substance who will govern with intellectual rigor and it isn’t the Nats sigh who are very little different than the last crew.
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Andrei I have known spray operators whose medical history gives the lie to your position on dioxins but the vets and those contractors who through accident and/or ignorance have had exposure and suffer now make it hard for me to deny a link. There may be some psycological links also, and I accept we still have big gaps in the picture. With the smoking and health my work in Ambulance leads me to different views as all too often I attend smokers who have COPD and tobacco smoke is all too often evident as a contributory cause.
Back to topic: I see a pragmatic response to a potential H & S in employment issue and as a past addict to the nicotine drug I fail to see why tobacco access must be maintained when all other addictions and habits are not pandered to.
As to removing the legal availability of tobacco I see that as a totally different argument and my position on making drugs of all descriptions law breaking when viewed against the disaster that was US prohibition c1930s, I will leave to another debate another day.
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GD
I attend smokers who have COPD and tobacco smoke is all too often evident as a contributory cause
Nobody is denying that smoking is bad for the smoker – its the second hand smoke hypothesis that doesn’t pass muster because there is no credible evidence showing a link between second hand smoke and adverse health outcomes for those exposed.
The biggest study that exists on this matter claimed there was in two of three cases they considered and supported their thesis by lowering the bounds for statistical significance. In the third case they considered in this study exposure to second hand smoke led to beneficial outcomes – this they ignored. Actually in all three cases proper statistical analysis reveals there is no discernible difference in health outcomes. between those exposed and those not exposed.
I have known spray operators whose medical history gives the lie to your position on dioxins but the vets and those contractors who through accident and/or ignorance have had exposure and suffer now make it hard for me to deny a link.
May I gently point out GD that anyone who sprayed 245t must be in their late fifties or older by now and that any Vietnam Vet must be in their sixties or older by now and that people in late middle age and older are subject to fell diseases regardless of what they did or did not do in their youth.
The causes of said ailments may or may not be related to environmental exposure to noxious things decades ago but everybody without exception will eventually fall prey to something no matter how clean living pure their lifestyle.
Every day men in their fifties, sixties and seventies etc are diagnosed with cancer (say) – most of them were not exposed to agricultural chemicals and even fewer are Vietnam vets but still they get sick.
Why?
Because that’s the way it is for us mortals – we get old (if we are lucky) , our bodies fall apart and we die.
And Judith Collins silly pandering to interest groups will not change this nor add a nano second to your life span or mine.
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GD – I’ve always thought the, “boring, unimaginative, done to death, derogatory nickname for The Hon Ms Judith Collins” came from within the National camp and your assessment of it’s quality certainly fits my impression of them. On the topic of Collins, I maintain that the only car that has been crushed since her hot-headed ‘crushing’ claims, has been Key’s!
Funny how that went.
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