Smoking will soon be legal again in Mississippi prisons
(Source: Gray News)
By Anthony Warren | December 23, 2020 at 4:32 PM CST - Updated December 23 at 5:33 PM
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Smoking will soon be legal again in the state’s prisons.
Beginning February 1, 2021, Mississippi prison inmates will be able to smoke legally for the first time in 10 years.
Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said the change will protect inmates who are already smoking, and corrections officials, who might be smuggling tobacco products into the prisons.
“Inmates who smoke are smoking anyway,” he said in a release. “But they’re having to smuggle tobacco in, which is illegal, and it’s even more illegal because state law prohibits smoking in state buildings.”