Posted on 03/24/2022 12:52:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
An investigation into narcotics inside the Halawa prison revealed two deaths and at least 14 overdoses in the past eight months linked to the same designer drug
An investigation into narcotics inside the Halawa prison revealed two deaths and at least 14 overdoses in the past eight months linked to the same designer drug.
Spice, also known as synthetic marijuana, hasn’t made too many headlines here lately.
But officials at Halawa Correctional Facility say it’s a problem behind bars.
Often sold in colorful pouches, spice can resemble marijuana.
The psychoactive substance is also sold in a liquid form. Marketed in vials, liquid spice is also advertised already applied to paper.
“We suspect that particular drug came in through the mail,” said Tommy Johnson, deputy director of Corrections for the Department of Public Safety.
One of the reasons spice is popular among inmates is because it’s easier to smuggle in. It’s believed inmates are receiving letters laced with the drug and putting the paper on their tongue to get high.
“They were exhibiting strange behavior and then some of them started throwing up,” Johnson said.
Last September, Honolulu EMS responded to a mass casualty incident at Halawa in which seven prisoners were rushed to the hospital.
Johnson says they’d all ingested the designer drug.
“Staff noticed immediately so we locked the facility down,” he said. “All had recovered by the end of that day, thank God.
It’s a trend that surprised an emergency room doctor who practices at Pali Momi Medical Center.
Dr. Mark Baker says among drug users out in the community, “meth kind of dwarfs everything.”
He called it “unusual” to have a patient come in who’s overdosed on spice. “A drug that most people wouldn’t think of as being lethal, dying from it is really concerning,” said Baker.
Johnson agreed.
“You know, you don’t know what you’re taking until you take it. And you don’t know the effects until it starts affecting you. And then it can be too late,” he said.
He said prison staff do a variety of things to keep drugs out but didn’t get into specifics for security reasons. In addition to current measures, they’re also considering hiring a third party to sort through all the inmate mail coming in.
“The mail sorting could cost anywhere between $500,000 and $900,000 a year depending on the volume of the mail,” Johnson said. “The concern there is the mail would have to go to the mainland to be sorted, Xeroxed and then be sent here, which would delay the mail.”
Johnson says another option would be giving prisoners e-mail accounts.
The funding to make either of those ideas a reality would have to be approved through the Legislature.
For anyone that’s gonna post how do drugs get into prison....it’s all too common.
The butler?
You should consider a career in politics.
I know it’s common, but it still seems like someone isn’t doig their job.
Well that a terrible design.
[[“We suspect that particular drug came in through the mail,” said Tommy Johnson,]]
HUH? They don’t investigate the mail that comes in?
Halawa is in a tough spot——up the wooded Halawa canyon with hills on both sides. You can launch junk in there with a sling shot. And it’s wild pig hunting country altho I don’t remember anyone flinging bacon over the wire?
Do stupid things, win stupid prizes. Death included.........
I volunteer in My church’s prison ministry.....the guards in the state DOC here start out at $35k a year.....and that’s a after a recent $2k a year raise.
Some staff are just too tempted. Pictures of the staff that have been caught and arrested for introducing contraband into the facilities are posted at room where the metal detector and searches take place.
I have yet to go into a facility and not see those postings. One facility had 6 people caught.
also, prisons are full of master manipulators.
I knew someone who worked in the prison system about a decade ago. He said that the prisoners didn’t get any letters from the outside that were not photocopies. A letter comes in, gets opened, photocopied and then destroyed. The photocopy was delivered. The prison system has known about paper delivered drugs for a long, long time. Therefore, I call BS on the reason.
Having had a few prison employees as tenants I can tell you they’ll hire anyone and if they do a background check the bar to getting the job is low enough a Chihuahua would have to duck under it.
They should just open a bar, so the guests don’t have to turn to illegal drugs. Make a few bucks back, too.
kinda solves the problem with lethal injection...
The guard to inmate population ratio is way out of balance in my state.
Contraband of all kinds getting into prisons is as old a problem as prisons themselves in this country.
Are Xerox machines banned in Hawaii? This excuse sounds lame.
The convicts are adults, let them lace it with fentanyl and get rid of them.
The protocols on photocopying incoming mail I suspect varies from state to state.
My state doesn’t do that. I know that for a fact because when recently talking to a guard he stated the latest thing is an inmates’ contact on the outside will spray letter paper etc. to be sent in with bug spray and then let it dry....then its mailed in, the inmate receives it then smokes the paper with the bug spray on it to get high.
Now that the facilities have caught on to it it’ll be something else.
Contraband is a real cat and mouse game.
In Hawaii the entire Justice system is a union jobs program for family. It is a joke. Too many stupid un-necessary laws and too many people’s incomes are dependent on enforcing, trying, and imprisonment for violation of those laws.
There are some bad people out there that need to be locked up, but the majority don’t need to be.
Why can’t they just make regular old hooch out of banana peels and apple cores like we did back in my prison days? ;)
I am sure if you go to the right place you can get artisanal pruno.
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