At the start of the summer, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry announced in an e-message that all smoking would be prohibited in state prisons. Keefe Commissary Network would no longer allow prisoners to purchase rolling tobacco and smoking-related products.
It was a once-in-a-prison-lifetime opportunity.
Typically, I earn $70 per month from my job as a peer facilitator. In Arizona, prison jobs offer some sense of security, but wages range from 15 cents to just over a dollar an hour, so we are left to go above and beyond to make a decent living.
For many prisoners, working a side hustle — re-selling or bartering commissary goods, tattoo work, hobby crafts and so on — is a more reliable way to earn income to modestly improve quality of life.
Before the policy went into effect, I stocked up, fulfilling a commissary order with 20 tobacco pouches priced at $4.25 each and a package of Bugler 115-count rolling papers priced at $1.20.
I began rolling five dozen cigarettes a week and selling three cigarettes for one Maruchan ramen soup. Sales were slow at first, but I continued to supplement my income with the honorariums I earn writing stories for Prison Journalism Project and tutoring my peers.
As July approached, I stopped working as a peer facilitator for the remainder of the summer to focus on my tobacco business, which was earning me more than $100 a month. Luckily, my state is one of the few that doesn’t punish individuals who refuse to work official prison jobs.
Rolling papers eventually ran out of stock at the commissary. That meant others would be in short supply as well, so I raised the price per cigarette to $1 apiece.
Sales skyrocketed. I was receiving all kinds of commissary items as payment, including sodas, summer sausages, and $6 bags of Maxwell House coffee.
By mid-July I ran out of single cigarettes, and I made my last commissary purchase of tobacco pouches. Due to the dwindling supply of cigarettes, bartering went berserk. I could sell a single pouch of tobacco (again, priced at $4.25) for anywhere from $15 to $50 in commissary items.
For a single pouch, I received a fan, a lamp, a brand new pair of shoes, some commissary food, and a pair of Koss CL-20 headphones.
By August, my stock had run out. The yard officially began its transition to a smoke-free environment, but not all nicotine was banned. Chewing tobacco would still be available for the population to purchase. But I decided my days in the tobacco business were over.