# Maybe  Even I Will Start Drinking Coffee.......



## Bruce Monkhouse (12 Sep 2005)

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2005/09/12/1213883-cp.html

  
WINNIPEG (CP) - A Manitoba jail has stopped serving tea because some inmates were using tea bags to make cigarettes. 
Smoking has been banned at the Headingley Correctional Centre near Winnipeg since November 2003, but that hasn't stopped some inmates from finding creative ways to get their fix. All they need is a dried-out tea bag and some nicotine chewing gum. 

"The gum is boiled and there's a nicotine residue that's removed and dried and then sprinkled on the redried tea bag leaves, and then rolled," jail superintendent Cathy Sandney said Monday. 
Jail officials were surprised inmates would go through the painstaking process to get a smoke, Sandney said, because it can take up to two days to make one cigarette. 
The jail stopped serving tea last week, but is looking at offering instant tea - which has no bags. 

The inmates' creativity already caused a stir earlier this year when officials discovered some were using the thin pages of Bibles to roll homemade cigarettes. 
That prompted the jail to stop making the book widely available in living quarters. Inmates wanting a Bible must now ask for it from chaplains, who assess whether the Scripture will be read or burned.


----------



## Wolfe (15 Sep 2005)

Its crazy how inmates can be creative.....


Wolf


----------



## Steel Badger (15 Sep 2005)

Hey Bruce...


Remember the great "Explosive Powdered Milk" caper?

Or Walnuts "discovering" that the mopes could create a mini-flash bang with matchheads and a ping-pong ball?



Ahhh Good Times, Good Times....


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (15 Sep 2005)

Ahh, I can hear the soap bars flying down the hall as I read......


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (26 Mar 2007)

That didn't take long....................

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/03/26/3836066-sun.html

Nicotine patch banned for prisoners
By AJAY BHARDWAJ, SUN MEDIA
    
Ingenious inmates who fashioned smokes from nicotine patches will have to dig deeper into their bag of tricks to keep puffing after the province's nicotine patch ban kicks in today. 

When the province banned tobacco at its jails in September 2004, inmates were given the patch and nicotine gum to cope.
"Unfortunately, the patches ended up being quite abused," said Solicitor General spokesman Christine Skjerven. 
But an Edmonton remand centre source said while the patch ban is welcome, inmates will find other items to smoke. 

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, the union that represents guards working in provincial jails, filed an occupational health and safety complaint last April over inmates smoking cigarettes concocted from nicotine patches. It's been calling for a complete ban on the nicotine patch since then. 
The remand source said smoking isn't the worst part of the illegal makeshift cigarettes. The source said inmates make wicks out of toilet paper and keep fires going throughout the day in places like the remand centre in Edmonton. 

"We have a constant fire going on the fourth floor," said the source. "It's smouldering smoke. Inmates can't live in it and guards can't work in it." 
Inmates use nicotine from the patches, mix it with dried tea, toilet paper, fruit peels or pencil shavings, leading some to call it "teabacco." 

The dried mix is then wrapped in pages torn from books - Bible paper is the preferred choice - and smoked. 
An air quality test commissioned by the province showed that toxic chemicals were coming from the wacky tobaccy. 

The union said the smoke caused severe respiratory symptoms among prison staff. About 20 Workers' Compensation complaints were launched over it. 
The AUPE applauded the government for moving so fast to ban nicotine patches. 
Union president Doug Knight couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. 

Les Hagen of Action on Smoking and Health, an anti- smoking lobby group, said the government is right to protect workers and inmates by doing away with the patch and gum if they're abused. 
"It's an issue of health and safety that needs to be addressed," he said. "They still have a number of options available that won't compromise the health and safety of inmates and correctional officers." 

Government officials don't fear any uprising in jails as a result of the ban, said Skjerven. She said prisoners and guards have known for some time the ban was coming. 
"We're making sure we have a safe environment for inmates and for correctional officers," Skjerven said. 

Inmates can turn to programs to help them stop smoking or "there's always cold turkey," said Skjerven.


----------



## Jaydub (26 Mar 2007)

How do you feel about that, Bruce?  Do you agree with the ban, or do you think they should have the right to smoke in designated areas?


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (26 Mar 2007)

Ontario has been smoke-free for over 10 years now, as it should be. Why should I be subject to dangerous chemicals in my workplace?

...though your 'designated areas' brought a chuckle to my morning anyway..........[no insult intended, its just obvious you don't know the 'product']


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (4 Apr 2007)

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Harris_Michael/2007/03/30/3869881.html

By MICHAEL HARRIS
  
April, according to T.S. Eliot, is the cruelest month. 
Around April 12, federal inmates are about to find out if the poet had it right. 

That's the day Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) is expected to gather its courage and decide if it will continue to expose its guards to second-hand smoke or usher in a total ban on smoking in the country's federal prisons. 

While the rest of the enlightened world has banned smoking everywhere from bars to beaches, the CSC has fought tooth and nail to keep the inmates puffing -- despite Health Canada's unambiguous pronouncements on the dangers of second-hand smoke in the workplace. 
How foolishly has the CSC behaved? In January 2006, in response to unrelenting pressure from the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO), CSC banned smoking inside for those inside. The catch, of course, was they could still buy and smoke ciggies from the canteen -- as long as they did their puffing in the yard. 

Think of it as the honour system run amok. In jig time, inmates flagrantly violated the new system by smoking in their cells and on the ranges. Why not? The fine for getting caught is $5 and a warning to be good boys in the future. 

In the real world ... 
Here's what happens if the rest of the world gets caught taking a puff in a restaurant where there's a municipal bylaw forbidding us to light up: For a first offence, we get slammed with a $250 fine. If we persist, the fine can rise to $5,000. And in places like Waterloo, Ont., bylaw officers show up at your table with the police to stifle your smoke rings. 

"The ban on smoking inside was just plain useless," UCCO regional president Jason Godin told me. "The only real solution is to ban tobacco completely and that means not selling it in the institutions' canteens." 
The CSC's response? It couldn't ban tobacco sales because tobacco, after all, is a legal item of commerce. 
According to that logic, the LCBO should set up an outlet in the Kingston pen. 

Still, CSC thought the right approach was to continue to allow the sale of tobacco in the joint, but to offer programs to help cons kick the habit. The programs have proven about as successful as the ones CSC offers to rehabilitate prisoners. In the six months before the ban on smoking inside, inmates spent $541,000 on tobacco. In the six months after, they forked out $527,000. 

Although the CSC found it much easier to take guns away from guards than cigarettes away from inmates, the word is that it is about to announce a total ban on smoking in the country's 57 federal prisons -- a less-than bold-move when you consider that seven provinces, including Ontario, have already done that in their jails. 

Will it matter any more than CSC's hilarious "zero tolerance" drug policy? It depends on the enforcement regime. Canada's prison system is awash in drugs and booze because nothing significant happens when the rules are broken. 
Still, all is not lost. If CSC bans the sale of tobacco, ciggies will instantly become the No. 1 contraband item behind bars. 

And, as everyone knows, it is a lot harder to suitcase a bale of tobacco than an ampule of hash.  


I do agree with the last comment, it has really changed what people try to smuggle in............


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (5 Apr 2007)

Nothing greatly newsworthy here but I'm sure some will find it interesting.


http://www.thestar.com/News/article/199782

Drug runs no longer a shoe-in for inmates

Betsy Powell 
Crime Reporter

Drugs and weapons have been literally walking through the door at some GTA correctional facilities – prompting new rules on what inmates can wear in custody.
Correctional officials, long plagued by contraband in jail, have instituted a shoe policy to combat a new method of smuggling drugs and weapons.

Over the past few months, prisoners were accused of hiding contraband inside the soles of hollowed-out shoes. Authorities have seen so many similarities in the handiwork – and the brand of shoe – they suspect a single source, possibly at one central depot.
They believe the payoff for smuggling contraband into jail is so lucrative that some people ponder getting arrested deliberately for "minor" things in order to go behind bars for a few days.

It's basic economics: scarcity drives up prices, say the authorities.
"You've got to remember, in jail a regular tobacco cigarette is worth $50. So this is big, big dollars for them," said Det. Joe Digiovanni of 41 Division. A small quantity of marijuana that would sell for $10 on the street can go for 10 times higher behind bars.
"It's causing a lot of extra work for everyone," the detective said yesterday of the procedures involved when it comes to incarcerating suspects.

Last month, Digiovanni charged a man with possessing marijuana for the purpose of trafficking after correctional officials at Toronto East Detention Centre intercepted a pair of Nike running shoes. The soles had been stuffed with pot. 
Two weeks earlier, Toronto police charged another man with drug trafficking after he allegedly tried to sneak dope into the jail near Eglinton and Warden Aves. inside his carved-out footwear.
Both cases are before the courts.

The shoe phenomenon appears to have first been noticed 2 1/2 years ago. According to an Oct. 14, 2004 "security bulletin," a truckload of Nike shoes "may have been stolen exclusively for the purpose to smuggle contraband into correctional facilities." Paul Downing, manager-chief inspector for the Correctional Investigation and Security Unit, signed the warning.

The bulletin was issued after staff at the jail discovered two pairs of Nike Air running shoes had been tampered with "when the soles of the shoes had been slit and then hollowed out to create a compartment to conceal contraband. Included was a tube of glue so the sole could be returned to it's (sic) original appearance."
Attached to the bulletin was a photograph of the shoes, with the sole folded back to expose the cavity. Since catching onto the scheme, corrections employees have been hyper-vigilant, particularly when an inmate comes in wearing Nike shoes. The hollowed-out versions are also believed to have been used to bring small, box-cutter type knives into jails and detention centres.

But while "intake" staff conduct thorough searches, "the quality of alterations has improved significantly so it's undetectable," said a source familiar with the practice.
And there are other issues. For instance, if an inmate enters a facility wearing high-end designer shoes, "if you cut (them open) ... if they're altered during a search, then the taxpayer is on the hook," said the source.

Some institutions have also tightened up rules regarding what inmates can wear to court after several incidents where inmates returned with contraband sewn into the lining of their clothes.
Law enforcement and court officials say those rule changes are easily observed since so many prisoners are now coming to court in jail-issued orange jumpsuits and blue running shoes. Previously, people accused of crimes facing judges and juries were permitted to wear their own clothes since it's widely believed jail-issued clothes automatically confers criminal status.

"They're taking away all of their personal property in the jails ... including the shoes, so now they get these jail shoes," said a source in law enforcement. A spokesman for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services refused to comment.
"Inmates are constantly coming out with innovative ways of trying to bring contraband into the institutions and yeah, when we come across an incident we look at the procedures we've got in place and we make changes we think we need to block that from happening again," said Stuart McGetrick, adding he was "not going to talk about specific changes because that's a security issue."

And while the government has incident reports "on this kind of thing," the ministry is unable to provide total numbers either for an institution or provincewide, he said.

Meanwhile, another serious safety issue facing corrections officials is the practice by inmates of "hooping" small pocket knives in their anuses, causing corrections staff in some institutions to resort to using metal detectors.
Sometimes, inmates go to hospital to be X-rayed. "It becomes an issue of safety," said Digiovanni. Another option used by officials is to put those suspected of "hooping" knives in a toilet-free "dry cell," where they are watched when they must use the washroom.


----------

