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February 20, 2007
Black Market for Cigarettes in California Prisons
Some folks will never learn that if large gains from trade exist, people will trade even if exchange is prohibited. Case in point--the black market for cigarettes in California prisons: LANCASTER -- There's no if, and or butt about it: California's ban on tobacco in prisons has produced a burgeoning black market behind bars, where a pack of smokes can fetch up to $125. Prison officials who already have their hands full keeping drugs and weapons away from inmates now are spending time tracking down tobacco smugglers, some of them guards and other prison employees. Fights over tobacco have broken out -- at one Northern California prison guards had to use pepper spray to break up a brawl among 30 inmates. The ban was put in place in July 2005 to improve work conditions and cut rising health care costs among inmates but it also has led to an explosive growth of tobacco trafficking. The combination of potentially big profits and relatively light penalties are driving the surge. Darren Cloyd is nearing the end of his 15-year sentence at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, for second-degree armed robbery. Before the ban he remembers paying about $10 for a can with enough rolling tobacco for dozens of cigarettes. Now one contraband cigarette can cost that much. Posted by E. Frank Stephenson at 08:51 AM in Economics
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