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.
I think the Prison system is liable here.
When you are incarcerated, you don’t expect your crack cocaine to be laced with dangerous drugs.
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