Smoke ’em if you got ’em

From a report in the Los Angeles Times:

Doing time in a California state prison won’t be quite the same beginning Friday. All inmates, once given tobacco and matches along with their prison blues and toothbrush, will now be forbidden to smoke. …

Judging from the experience of other states — and reports from a few California prisons that are already smoke-free — health costs will go down. But their experience also shows that forcing inmates to kick the habit has downsides. …

When Maine banned smoking in prison in 2000, assaults quadrupled.