In some jails across the nation electronic cigarettes are now for sale.  While jails have typically banned smoking, some are beginning to carve out exceptions for “e-cigarettes”. In an effort to help increase revenue, cut down on tobacco related contraband and calm rowdy inmate populations, county jails across the country are increasingly turning to selling e-cigarettes to inmates.  As reported in The Tennessean:

Jails in Tennessee — including Sumner and Rutherford counties — are allowing inmates to smoke electronic cigarettes behind bars to help pacify what can be a rowdy population, but also as a revenue source. These disposable e-cigarettes, which usually cost the inmates between $9 and $15 each, contain no tobacco but instead use a low-voltage battery to deliver the key chemical in cigarettes, nicotine, while emitting only water vapor.

The Tennessee Department of Correction does not allow e-cigarettes in prison. But e-cigarettes behind bars are growing increasingly common across the country, and at least five Tennessee counties have allowed them into their jails. E-cigarette companies have begun exhibiting at Tennessee Sheriffs Association conferences, promising a cash cow for jails.

“Earn $1000s for your jail,” read one sign at the group’s summer 2013 conference, from a company called Precision Vapor.

For more information read the full article in The Tennessean.