Joy joy happy happy! I managed to duck beneath the purity-police at work, and get this read out on Jim Mora's Afternoon show on the National Programme. A few acquaintances commented on it favourably so here it is ....
Hello Jim,
God your guests irritate me. I very nearly took up smoking again. Why could you not get some talking head from our National Office to speak about it? Instead you got the other geezer. I'm a Corrections Officer with five+ years under my belt, therefore qualifying me to speak on this. Although there is some anxiety from all quarters, the transition is going well. I was screamed at by an angry prisoner for several minutes this morning but being the calm mature man that I am, I was eventually able to placate him - and I suspect he got puffed. :D
Allie/Ellie/Ali implied that carrot sticks are being proffered as the sole device to assist with the transition to non-smoking. For the past year Corrections has been preparing for the change. Gary - it hasn't been part of the Justice Dept for eons. Counselling, lozenges, Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) patches, and a wider range of healthier snack foods are all helping. Carrot sticks also serve as a placebo for the "manual-oral" behaviour associated with smoking.
Most of the prisoners are people who have drug addictions or resort to drug abuse when Joe Heke's usual coping mechanisms don't work. They're over-represented in prisons and additionally 70% of prisoners are smokers - 3 x the national average. If they can beat one addiction then they have a better chance of beating others, and prison is a good environment to help them - albeit arguably an artificial one. There is no alcohol problem in NZ prisons - more than one can say about the "outside."
Get on board with this folks - it WILL work, and many prisoners will sincerely thank us for it.
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