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. Greg Fallin, a 45-year-old inmate at Stillwater prison, has been smoking cigarettes since he was a kid. He quit once and remembers the awful first few weeks. Fallin's back to smoking three packs a day and not looking forward to August l when Minnesota prisons go smoke-free.

Fallin: First your nerves start going, you get stretched wire thin, hands start shaking, headaches, you want to stay as far away from anybody - any little thing will set you off.

Fallin: You got people here who are sitting here day after day - some will never get out. The state of Minnesota has no conception. They sugar coat it but they have no conception whatsoever the level of frustration that is building and will continue to build. You magnify that by taking away anything that would help pacify and you're sitting on a powder keg. You got a big problem.

Crist: It's going to be neccessary for staff and inmates to count to l0 a little more often, be a little more thoughtful in response to provocation. It's going to be hot, it's going to be humid, which are things that tend to make people crabby anyway, and then there'll be the added irritability that goes along with withdrawing from tobacco. There may be some difficult times.

Baumgartner: As a health care professional, certainly I am aware of the costs associated with cigarette smoking. I think the policy is appropriate and could result in significant savings of tax-payer dollars.

Kleiss: Most people don't know smoking is even allowed, and are quite outraged we pay 100% of health care costs, with health care costs over $l00/day per inmate.

Inmate John Chambers says he can't afford it.

Chambers: They're selling these nicotine patches to us at our expense. That's roughly $80 for one month's supply, and if you're making 40 cents an hour at your job, how are you going to pay? July 3l, I'll still be smoking - right up to the bitter end. I don't want to quit. I don't have that desire.

In mid-July, cigarettes remain by far the most popular purchase in the prison canteen. Down in the basement of the Stillwater prison, inmates wait impatiently for their orders to be filled during their weekly canteen shopping trip. The store offers some 400 products including a variety of groceries, toiletries, magazines, and cards. But tobacco products dominate the sales, accounting for one-fourth of the canteen business. At Stillwater, Minnesota's largest prison, 25,000 cartons of cigarettes were sold to inmates last year. System-wide, Minnesota prisoners spend almost $1.3 million annually on cigarettes.

Some of those cigarettes are purchased by inmates who don't smoke but use them for bartering purposes. When tobacco becomes contraband on August 1, Assistant Corrections commissioner Erik Skon says something else will be used.

Skon: Human beings are very resourceful people and if you eliminate one form of cash so to speak, they will develop another form. They'll resort to other things. More candybars or pop.

Rachuy: They didn't say everybody in Minnesota was going to quit smoking, just the prisoners. I don't why. Why don't they just leave us alone. Isn't it bad enough just being here?

In Minnesota, corrections officials point out all but a handful of county jails are already smoke free. State Senator Dave Kleis says banning tobacco in the state's prisons is a reasonable restriction.

Kleis: I don't think prison is a place where there should be a lot of pleasures and comforts. You pay your debt to society. You certainly have a choice whether to commit a crime in the first place. It shouldn't be a place you want to go and certainly shouldn't be a place you ever want to return to after you're released.