[SheLion]

Ahhhhhhh tell us where the money went!

[SheLion]

PUFF!!!!!!!

[Tacis]

You know those adorable little cloth covers that diseased smokers put on the little oxygen tanks they carry or tow that pumps air through those plastic pipes into their failing lungs? There are some really attractive ones in the NYC jail system (especially the Women's House of Detention in the West Village). I'll bet that is where the money went.

Of course, maybe it was just used to bury the jail paupers who die from smoking related deaths. Yeah, that could be it. But, I'm sure that anything involving tobacco and tobacco users is all above board and that there is, as always, a rational answer.

[PistolPaknMama]

Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani snubbed out the smoking ban plan in 1996, citing inmates' right to smoke.

Jailed citizens in New York have a "right to smoke" in a government-owned facility but free citizens don't have a right to smoke in privately-owned bars? The same government entity made both these rules?? Hmmmmm.

[blackdog]

An interesting question.......If NYC charges $7.00 per pack of smokes, and the prisons operate commisary sales sans sales and other taxes, wouldn't a poor person save $3,700 per year by going to prison with a two pack a day habit?

The smokes that person does then buy are possible due to prison jobs, essentially causing lower income nicotine addicts to seek incarceration? That is not a stretch....I know people like that.

[Great Dane]

The fox in the henhouse.