Canada: Prisons to be Smoke-free by Spring 2014

Source from:  Montreal Gazette (ca)  04/22/2013

Quebec's Public Security minister hopes to have all prisons completely smoke-free by the spring of 2014.

To mitigate the inevitable withdrawl symptoms, stop-smoking workshops with attendant nurses and other smoking cessation aids will be available for prisoners.

On Friday Stéphane Bergeron announced a program to gradually roll through the provincial system which will eliminate even outdoor smoking at the province's prisons.

The first location to go smoke-free will be in Percé and Sept-ÎIles starting this June.

The program is meant to protect staff and non-smoking prisoners from the dangers of second-hand smoke.

This is try number two. On February 5, 2008, smoking was banned in Quebec prisons.

On Feb. 8, 2008, the law was revised to allow prisoners permission to smoke in the outside courtyard.

Corrections personnel found this rule hard to police, as the prisoners still carried their smokes with them inside and often defied the rules.

A study by the University of Montreal in 2010 showed that 80 per cent of prisoners in Quebec institutions smoked, and of those, 93 per cent of smokers admitted smoking indoors despite the regulations.

The union representing Quebec prison guards, has been pushing for a total ban, both inside and out.

A pilot project was implemented in Chicoutimi in June 2012, to curb the danger of second-hand smoke and to gauge the best ways to go about implementing the ban.

Based on what the government says are positive results from that project, the new initiative was given the green light and a thumbs up from the Minister of Health and Social Services. Enditem