Georgia's Department of Corrections will start phasing out smoking and tobacco use in its 37 facilities beginning Jan. 1, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported Nov. 9.

Smoking and tobacco will first be banned at two diagnostic centers where inmates are sent after serving time in county jails. The ban will then be extended to the Augusta State Medical Prison, where very ill inmates live.

Tobacco will be banned in all of Georgia's state prisons on Dec. 1, 2010.

Georgia has prohibited smoking inside its prisons since the 1990s but now the ban will extend to outdoor areas, as well.

Tobacco is being banned so that taxpayers won't have to pay so much in health care bills for inmates and so that non-smoking inmates won't have to be exposed to secondhand smoke, according to Brian Owens, the state's corrections commissioner.

About 17 percent of the states' total corrections budget is spent on paying more than $226 million a year for health care for inmates. It costs Georgia millions of dollars for health care for tobacco-related diseases among inmates, according to state officials.

Georgia is the 11th state to ban smoking in its prisons.