By Andrew Thomson
Staff Writer
Fort Saskatchewan Record

Prisoners in Alberta jails may be about to lose one more freedom, the freedom to smoke.

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, AUPE, representing correctional employees, wants a total indoor and outdoor ban on smoking in provincial jails, including the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre.

It‘s long overdue, says Fort Correction Centre guard and city councillor, Don Westman.
I don’t know what they’re (the province is) waiting on. AUPE President Dan MacLennan says they’re responding to health concerns from prison employees exposed to second hand smoke.

It’s a ground level issue,says Westman.

The union has been asking for a smoking ban for several years. Now the province may finally be taking action.
Solicitor General’s Office Spokesman Peter Tadman, says the government plans to announce a smoke free policy later this spring.

Tadman says the government is looking at how to best implement a smoking ban as smoothly as possible.
MacLennan said stop-smoking methods like the patch could be made available to inmates to help ease the transition.

Both MacLennan and Tadman say other jurisdictions that have banned smoking do not appear to have had any significant problems.

Saskatchewan has had a total smoking ban in prisons since 2001. Saskatchewan Corrections spokesman Bill Derby said there was a disturbance at the Regina corrections facility when the policy was first brought in. But since then the smoking ban has been phased in across the province with no major problems.

British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and many US states all have prison smoking bans in place.

In Canada Federal prisons allow smoking in designated areas.

This facility is the residence of the inmates. So smoking is allowed on cellblocks, in cells, in the hallways adjacent to cells as well as in the workplace areas that have specially designed and designated smoking areas,says Gary Sears, Chief of Education for the Edmonton Institution, and Acting Assistant Warden Correctional Programs.

Westman says it would be impossible to enforce a partial smoking ban, for example an indoor only one, because there would be no way to stop prisoners from smoking in their cells if they were allowed to have tobacco. Also
guards supervising prisoners in designated smoking areas would still be exposed to second hand smoke.

Westman sees smoking as just one more right prisoners should have to give up when they break the law.