WINNIPEG - Staff at Headingly jail have started confiscating Bibles after discovering prisoners were using the pages for roll-your-own smokes.

The provincial jails are supposed to be tobacco-free, but enterprising inmates have come up with their own smokes - a combination of leaves from tea bags and Nicorette gum that is boiled, dried and rolled in the thin pages of the New or Old Testament.

I have so many feelings about this. I am not an overtly religious person. I classify myself as a Christian, although I subscribe to no particular denomination. They are destroying the Bible - which, if they tried to do that to the Koran, they would be killed. They are buring books. For which there is no excuse, even if they are a bunch of illiterate criminals (okay, bring on the criminal rights advocates: I love those guys!). They are destroying property meant for the enjoyment of all (I decline to agree with Cathy Sandney, the prison's superintendant, when she says

"They may have to pay for it. Normally, there's a consequence when you destroy government property."

since the books have been donated by the Gideons).

They are already in prison, which means that there's no further punishment for them. However I would suggest that once they have been identified, that it should be noted on their record for their parole hearings. Anyone shameless enough to destroy the Bible in order to fulfill his own craving - even though that craving contravenes the law of the prison - is likely to re-offend, and should not be granted early discharge.