Go slow on BCC smoke-ban

It is with the best of intentions that the Workers’ Compensation Board for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories is imposing a near-universal ban on smoking within all workplaces in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, effective May 1.

Their purpose is to protect workers from the well-documented health hazards posed by second-hand cigarette smoke, especially workers who make their living in bars and restaurants. Even non-smokers who work in such places have developed lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses, so it’s a measure the board has every right to take.

However, in applying these regulations to the Baffin Correctional Centre, and to correctional centres in the Northwest Territories, the WCB may be creating a new workplace safety issue.

After May 1, correctional centre staff will be supervising an inmate population who will now be spending much of their day in the throes of nicotine withdrawal. There are few addictions more powerful. That’s why so many people still smoke cigarettes even when they don’t want to. Some people have said it’s easier to withdraw from heroin than to kick the tobacco habit.

Any ex-smoker will tell you that the worst symptom of nicotine withdrawal is the intense irritability that accompanies it, especially in the first few weeks. Even the most placid people can fly into uncontrollable rages, with little provocation, when they try to quit smoking.

Many correctional inmates are fairly ordinary people who have made bad mistakes, or who have succumbed to alcohol abuse. But others are repeat violent offenders with hair-trigger tempers at the best of times.

Imagine then, the challenge to correctional centre staff that all this poses — including the potential danger. And for inmates who are trying to stay out of trouble while they do their time, the added pressure of being forced to quit smoking for most of the day will not help them keep their heads together.

To their credit, corrections officials will supply inmates with stop-smoking aids, such as nicotine patches. And all inmates will be allowed to smoke outside, which seems to be at least once a day.

We’re not suggesting that correctional centre inmates be allowed to do whatever they want and whenever they want to do it. Prison is not a feel-good kind of place, and it probably shouldn’t be.

But in applying the smoking ban to correctional centres, officials should proceed with caution, flexibility and a lot of common sense. JB