Assemblyman Wants To Ban Smoking In Prisons
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Assemblyman Tim Leslie says he wants to ban all tobacco products from California State prisons.
Health care cost savings to the state is the motivation behind the Republican assemblyman´s push.
Leslie says a recent study by the Department of Health Services reported each smoker costs California $3,500 a year in health care costs. With about 160,000 inmates in the state´s prisons, and roughly half of them smokers, the state spends close to $266-million in smoking-related health care costs for inmates each.
Leslie says it´s not a way to further punish prisoners but to help make the prison population healthier.
