E-cigarettes have been popular with prisoners and staff at the island’s jail.

A six-month trial allowing inmates at the prison to use e-cigarettes has seen many benefits for offenders and staff.

Prison governor Bob McColm, pictured below, said: ’The e-cigarette pilot scheme at Jurby prison is a major success story for the Isle of Man.

’A problem has been solved. We have better behaviour, a calmer, cleaner and safer environment.’

He also admitted his surprise at the number of prisoners who had asked for support in quitting smoking entirely

The island’s prison became the first in Europe to introduce a ban on smoking in 2008 and ever since, the challenge of stopping inmates from smoking has been a difficult one.

Prisoners ’devised ways to smoke tea bags, banana skins and other items mixed with nicotine soaked from the patches.

To combat this, rather than simply try to strictly enforce rules, Home Affairs Minister Bill Malarkey approved the introduction of e-cigs on a trial basis.

More than 25% of new offenders requested help to quit smoking during the trial, compared with none before the trial began.

He said: ’I am delighted the project has led to numbers of people wanting to give up smoking for good.

’This is an encouraging trend which will be explored further by policy makers and health professionals.’

The statement from the prison said that during the trial, there was a 42% drop in offender adjudications, a 58% drop in behaviour warnings and cell power outages were down by 50%.

The outages were caused by prisoners using wires and flints to obtain light up from the mains electricity which resulted in the power being short-circuited.

Inmates at the prison also praised the e-cigarette trial, according to the prison.

The Department of Home Affairs supplied a comment to us from a prisoner it simply called ’Dave’.

He said: ’I used to smoke every day of the week and didn’t think about quitting.

’Now I’ve quit because it (e-cigarettes) was too expensive, It was better for me, no doubt about it. I’m 29 now and I’ve been smoking since I was 13, It’s a good environment to quit smoking, especially now that e-cigarettes have come in.’

Chairman of the Independent Monitoring Board, Bob Ringham, believes the scheme has worked well: ’The atmosphere within the prison is significantly better from both the health and attitude point of view.

’To remove this now would be a major retrograde step and as a board we hope that the controlled use of e-cigarettes will become part of the normal prison regime.’

Henrietta Ewart, director of public health, said: ’I am delighted to see the positive outcome of the pilot and I endorse in the strongest possible terms a continuation of this approach.’

Reviews on the safety of e-cigarettes have reached significantly different conclusions about how safe they are.

E-cigarettes are thought to be less harmful than smoking and since they contain no tobacco and do not involve combustion.

But they have been found to reduce lung and myocardial function, increase inflammation, and have toxic content including carcinogens, but to a much lower extent than combustible cigarettes in virtually all cases.

The long-term effects of e-cigarette use are unknown.

Offenders will continue to have access to a controlled supply of e-cigs at Isle of Man Prison for the foreseeable future.

Nicotine replacement therapy patches were withdrawn when the trial began, leading to an annual saving of at least £8,500. Inmates must work in order to pay for their e-cigarettes.