A pro se prisoner sued individuals at the Virginia Department of Corrections Keen Mountain Correctional Center, alleging that they violated his Eighth Amendment rights by subjecting him to an excessive amount of secondhand smoke.  The District Court dismissed the complaint without prejudice because Johnson “cannot show deliberate indifference by correctional center personnel.”  KMCC was converted to a tobacco-free policy on February 1 2010.  The Court ruled that a “prison’s adoption of a no-smoking policy bears heavily on the deliberate indifference inquiry, and imperfect enforcement of a non-smoking policy does not rise to the level of deliberate indifference.”

2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64284 (U.S.D.C. W.D. Va. 2011).