The smoking ban in prison has led to a rise in inmates using e-cigarettes to take hallucinogenic drugs, prison guards have said.
And it has led to wardens in jails unwittingly getting high.
Guards at five of Scotland’s 14 prisons were quizzed in a Stirling University study.
They welcomed the ciggies ban behind bars but added that e-cigarettes were an “effective way” for cons to take drugs.
Vaping by prisoners is widespread, with more than 50 per cent using nicotine replacement therapy devices.
Wardens told how inmates weaned off tobacco were using devices to deliver a “hit”.
One said: “There has been a lot of instances of vapes being improvised.
“Prisoners know they can put paper in, soaked in NPS (novel psychoactive substances), and that’s now their hit.”
Another warned guards ingested drugs by mistake.
He said: “They enter a cell to speak to someone and by the time they’ve left, they’ve started to feel it [second-hand exposure to NPS].
“They suffer headaches and high blood pressure.
"Their heart rate zooms up and they become shaky and unsteady.
"Staff have been really, really poorly with it.”
Phil Fairley, chair of the Prison Officers’ Association in Scotland, said: “Prisoners can be ingenious.”
Scottish Tories’ shadow community safety minister Russell Findlay said: “Much greater attention should be given to risks associated with the abuse of e-cigarettes.”
The Scottish Prison Service said: “Prisoners use a variety of ways to take them [drugs] including, we believe, e-cigarettes.
"We are working on ways to detect and prevent their entry into the prison service as well as educating prisoners on their dangers.”
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