CHEYENNE - Squeaky balls to reduce stress, nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, herbal "chew" and hard candy are free incentives being offered to Wyoming prison inmates to get them ready for July 1, when the prisons go tobacco free.

No exceptions. It's a health issue.

The ban also extends to all state Department of Corrections offices, institutions, grounds and vehicles.

The department's tobacco cessation help program is available for all agency staff members and probationers and parolees as well as on a voluntary basis.

Two inmates and a staff member at the Wyoming Honor Farm at Riverton said Thursday they are doing well with the program.

Terri Hayes, records manager at the institution, started "the patch" May 1 after smoking for 15 years.

J.P. Sutherland stopped chewing tobacco March 8, after he completed nicotine replacement therapy. He still takes a lozenge after meals and uses flavored herbal "chew."

"I chewed for many years, and I'm used to having something stuck in my lip," he said.

Sutherland, 56, said he started chewing tobacco to stop smoking but found it was more addictive than cigarettes. Moreover, he started to develop precancerous lesions in his throat, which have since receded.

"For the first time in 24 years, I'm grateful to the DOC," he said.

The tension at the minimum-security prison, he said, isn't as bad as some expected.

"We're not looking forward to July 1, when the die-hards have to quit. Those of us who caught on earlier are just going to get out of the way and let the staff and the die-hard chewers and smokers fight it out," he said.

But he added, "We don't expect any real trouble, except a couple of guys trying to hide tobacco around the farm."

Meanwhile, corrections officers at the maximum-security prison in Rawlins have their own troubles.

"We've got a lot of grouchy, grumpy people at work, I'll tell you, and it's not just the inmates, either," said Dee Garrison, a corrections officer at the Wyoming State Penitentiary and president of the Wyoming Association of Correctional Employees.

Garrison, who does not use tobacco, said many corrections officers at the Rawlins prison joined the tobacco cessation program and are trying hard to quit.

Other officers are not. And many inmates, she said, are resisting the ban.

In Wyoming, 85 percent to 90 percent of inmates smoke cigarettes or use chewing tobacco, which is about the national average. For corrections staff, the rate of users is 65 to 75 percent, said Donna Sheen, the department's support services administrator.

A majority of other states have partial or full tobacco bans. All federal prisons went 100 percent tobacco free in 2004.

Providing some help

Honor Farm inmate Steve Jordan, 44, is finished with nicotine replacement therapy after chewing tobacco since age 13. He occasionally uses nicotine gum to curb cravings.

He said he wanted to quit anyway, but it would have cost him a chunk of dollars for the replacement therapy if he were "on the street." This way the Department of Corrections footed the bill.

The program pays for nicotine patches which cost $35 to $40 for a two-week supply, and for nicotine lozenges, which cost $50 to $55 for one month, officials said.

Department Director Bob Lampert went to the Legislature last winter and got $2.4 million in tobacco settlement money to pay for the tobacco cessation plan to give inmates and staff a head start on the July 1 quit date.

"I do believe it's really paid off, because there are a lot of folks who appreciate this is a positive plan," Sheen said.

Two tobacco cessation coordinators for the department - Elizabeth Robison of Cheyenne, and Rosi Davidson who works out of the Buffalo office - conduct the cessation classes at the Wyoming prisons. They also have traveled to prisons in Haskell and Littlefield, Texas, to sign up Wyoming inmates housed there.

The Wyoming Women's Center at Lusk has been tobacco free for five to seven years, but the women will get help if they need it when they are discharged.

The plan began with a mandatory orientation session for all inmates, users and non-users, so all would have the same information, Robison said. They were offered the chance to sign up for the cessation classes for 10 to 12 inmates each, where they were taught coping skills to deal with the stress and triggers.

More than 700 inmates now participate in the program.

The program will run through the end of September for inmates who didn't prepare for the cutoff.

"We recognize there would be folks who, despite our invitation, would get to the July 1 date and find themselves totally unprepared to deal with life without tobacco," Sheen said.

But after the end of September, the nicotine replacement therapy aids will be contraband, too.

Black market?

Corrections officers are bracing for the same problems other penal institution encountered when they went smoke free or tobacco free - flourishing tobacco smuggling and black markets.

For example, at the Norco Rehabilitation Center in California, where all prisons when smoke free in July 2005, a $13 can of tobacco can generate $500 to $600 in profits, while cigarettes sell for $2 to $4 apiece, according to an Internet article that quoted corrections officers. The leading smugglers are inmate work and fire crews.

"It's not just with the fighting breaking out," Garrison said. "A cigarette would be worth more than drugs. That has the staff concerned."

Although Garrison often disagrees with the department leaders, she credits the agency for preparing inmates and staff for the cutoff by giving them every opportunity to join the cessation program.

Veteran corrections officer Sam Bustos, who has worked at the Wyoming State Penitentiary for 22 years, said he doesn't believe smuggling will be a long-term problem at the prison.

"I think that will happen here once or twice," Bustos said.

Bustos, who smokes one cigar per week, said he supports the tobacco ban because it will create a healthier environment and because the lack of smoking breaks should increase productivity.

Inmates, he said, do use tobacco as a bartering tool, which the ban will stop.

"They'll just find something else to barter," Bustos said.

Capital bureau reporter Joan Barron can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or at joan.barron@casperstartribune.net.