Evidence, Did You Say?

For curiosity, here's a Guardian article from 2015:

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of charity Action on Smoking and Health, said there was no evidence to support claims that depriving prisoners of tobacco could lead to riots.

Oh really?

Inmates are rioting over a new smoking ban in prisons

Inmates are staging riots over a new Government ban on smoking in prisons, which is seeing tobacco steadily phased out. 

A ban on tobacco cigarettes is now being slowly introduced into prisons, with several jails already having banned them outright. 

Others, meanwhile, are preparing to be completely smoke-free by September. 

One recent inmate of Drake Hall Women’s Prison told Metro.co.uk that she was dismayed to see how the smoking ban had changed the atmosphere in the jail. 

She said: ‘We got all the leaflets about how the ban was going to happen – first the shop would stop selling tobacco, and then the total ban would come in.

‘Within the first week of the shop stopping selling it there was a riot. Loads of prisoners refused to go back to their cells and it was mayhem. 

‘There were women screaming and shouting, sitting on the roofs of blocks. After it calmed down a lot of those involved were transferred, probably to prisons where they can smoke.

Well there is now, Debs. And the ban hasn't even started properly yet!

Former prisoner, academic and blogger Alex Cavendish told Metro.co.uk: ‘Hard core nicotine addicts know that they only need to cause trouble for staff before they are “shipped out” to another establishment. 

The real test, he said, will come when the category B jails go smoke-free.

File Arnott's prisons claim alongside the bullshit that says no pubs closed since the smoking ban.

One day tobacco controllers might embrace the real world so we can live in a better place. Until then, government will continue funding them as they talk crap and harm people.