HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- On the surface, Texas' first tobacco-free prison looks just the way state officials said it would.
The day rooms are free of cigarette butts, the floors don't have tobacco juice stains, and the cells smell more like hospital rooms.
But after 10 months, the $30 million, 2,000-bed Holliday Unit has one problem, guards and inmates say. Tobacco is still getting in.
It comes in all shapes and every manner of disguise -- in hidden pockets that inmates sew to their uniforms before being transferred to Holliday, in oil cans brought by work crews from prisons where tobacco is allowed and, occasionally, by guards looking to make extra money.
Already a black market in tobacco is spreading among the 1,843 inmates. Some pay as much as $1.50 for a single cigarette. A pack can go for $15 to $20.
When the Texas Board of Criminal Justice voted unanimously Nov. 18 to ban tobacco from all prisons and parole facilities beginning March 1, some civil liberties groups warned of a potential backlash by angry inmates. But at the Holliday Unit, a transfer facility where the ban has been in effect for 11 months, prison officials and even some inmates play down those fears.
The real trouble, they said, will be keeping tobacco out.
"You can't stop it; you can only control it," said Maj. Curtis L. McKnight, who has overseen 337 guards at Holliday since the prison opened in January. "The demand for this [tobacco] is definitely increasing. The inmates have nothing else to do but sit and talk all day about how they're going to beat the system."
As many as 40,000 of the state's 100,000 inmates smoke, and last year they spent $5.35 million on tobacco, which can be bought only through prison commissaries, according to the office of the criminal justice executive director.
What worries some prison officials in Huntsville is that once the statewide ban takes effect, the demand for tobacco will surge, leading inmates to invent new ways to elude guards.
Holliday Warden Mickey Liles also frets that the policy will be hard to enforce since prison officials have to contend with other contraband.
"Nobody thinks about cigarette smuggling," he said. "It doesn't have the same taboo on it as smuggling marijuana or cocaine or other drugs."
Finding a place to smoke isn't easy, most inmates say. From 3:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., prisoners are busy raising hogs, sweeping floors, cleaning barns and preparing food.
But one inmate who asked not to be identified said he knows several day rooms where inmates can get away with smoking. Guards check his living area four times a day: 6:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. When the guards leave, he said, inmates light up.
"We do it right here," the man said, pointing toward his bunk. "But to get some, you've got to know people. It's easier for someone who's been in here for a while."
One thing prisoners can't gripe about is the air quality: Compared with some prisons, Holliday is a breath of fresh air.
At the Wynne Unit, a 2,500-bed facility across the road, inmates complain of smoke-filled day rooms and poor ventilation.
Hallways and cells reek of cigarette smoke. Some inmates look pale. Their teeth are crooked and dark. Even their uniforms look scruffy and drab compared with the snow-white outfits worn by inmates at Holliday.
"I can't wait for this new policy," said Arliss L. Linder Jr., 37, a nonsmoker who has spent six years in Wynne on a burglary charge. "There's no ventilation here."
Warden Liles hopes that attitude will rub off on inmates, who make do at Holliday without a formal smoking-cessation program. He said a survey of 172 employees showed that 125 favored the tobacco ban, 32 opposed it and 15 had no preference.
In addition, Warden Liles said, the policy saves money and lives by reducing the number of inmates at risk of smoke-related conditions such as emphysema and asthma.
"The real fear some inmates have is of the unknown," he said. "The way you manage anything is with communication. You have to get out there and talk to the inmates and let 'em know what's happening. If you get them past the fear, it will be OK."