Smoking kills quite a few addicts. In prison, smoking is very, very common. There is not much else to do. It's so common that cigarettes are a prisoner's currency.
In spite of all that, prisoners aren't dumb and many of them would like to quit smoking if they could. Cigarettes are VERY addictive and hard to lick. Of course, the prison administration offers no kind of help to quit. That might do some good for prisoners.
Recently, "Nicorette," a nicotine chewing gum made by Lakeside Pharmaceuticals, was approved for sale without a prescription. Using the product might help some addicts kick the deadly cigarette habit and, thereby, save some lives. If it were sold in the prison commissary, it would likely save the lives of a few prisoners.
The prisons sell lots of cigarettes in their commissaries. They were asked to sell Nicorette too. Do you think the prison would cooperate to allow prisoners to help themselves out of the cigarette addition?
No!
Why not? Because chewing gum is much too dangerous to allow in prison. It's better to let prisoners die from cancer.
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