Prison report: Addiction behind barsBy Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His blogs run twice a week.
Something I’ve neglected to talk about at length since my blog began back in April is addiction in prison.
Obviously, a very large percentage of us in prison are here for things that ultimately were related to drugs. From possession to robbery to murder, in one way shape or form, 90 percent of us committed our crimes while on drugs or alcohol, while trying to get drugs or alcohol, or pursing the “rewards” of selling drugs and hurting people in that pursuit.
I’ve blogged about cell phones, specifically twice, and have touched on that subject numerous times, but I’ve not really dug into the drug problem.
I guess to some degree I was caught up in the heart of the “cell phone wars” from an inmates point of view, but the cell phone dilemma has done an excellent job of overshadowing what I perceive to be a much bigger threat to public safety -- drug and alcohol addiction in prison.
In my defense, it’s easy to get caught up in the cell phone question because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s rationale is ludicrous in light of the problems caused by addiction and drugs in prison. It’s almost as if they’re using cell phones to take our attention away from the real problem.
First of all, drugs in prison are quite plentiful and easy to get, and cause a whole host of problems, from gang trouble to debt trouble to race trouble -- not to mention the spread of disease. (I had never seen heroin until I went to prison.)
Drugs are expensive in prison, but sometimes the supply exceeds the demand and prices drop dramatically. The demand in prison is really dictated by a user’s ability to pay, and suffice it to say there are not a lot of guys in prison with money to burn.
Most often, drugs in prison are purchased by the users friends , family and loved ones by sending money to the dealer’s point of contact via wire transfer (Western Union or Moneygram). There are people that will sell drugs for canteen, or allow the money to be mailed, but the method of choice is wire transfer. (Would you want to give some guy in prison your family’s address to mail money to?)
The units of measure are generally $50 or $100 pieces; out of a gram of heroin, a dealer would get approx six $100 pieces. The cost of a gram wholesale in prison ranges from $150 to $200, but a gram on the streets costs about $20.
Heroin is the drug of choice in prison, with speed and weed following a close second. Speed costs more on the street but less than heroin in prison; a gram of speed in prison has about four $100 pieces in it and costs $60 - $80 a gram on the streets.
As you can see, the profit margins are huge with, honestly, negligible risks -- because the people in administration don’t focus on drugs. They focus on cell phones
I am consistently amazed at the number of high people around me all the time. It’s very annoying, because you can’t get away from them, they are there, around you, 24/7/365. Sometimes it feels like you’re locked in a room with a bunch of drunk people, and you’re the only sober one. And if you know what it’s like being around drunks when you’re sober .... well, just imagine it for a moment.
I don’t know what it’s like at all prisons, and can’t say that the drugs are as plentiful in other places, but I suspect that any prison near a metropolitan area has similar issues.
I can’t help but wonder what is a greater threat to public safety -- drug addiction or cell phones in prison. Duh.! No, I am not serious -- of course it’s cell phones, right CDCR and CCPOA?
I wonder what’s a greater risk to public safety -- someone guy escaping, or releasing five heroin addicts who have received no treatment and are nursing a habit on their release date.
Wait, wait, wait -- I need to calm down .... Phew, heart’s beating a little slower now. Okay, I see -- the cell phones are a greater risk to officer safety than drugs, right? Hmmm ... I wonder how many race riots have been caused by cell phones, and how many officers have been hurt in those riots.
What about the risks to public safety by needle sharing? I mean, it’s not like we have a needle exchange in prison. And God knows how many people are sharing the same needle.
Look, they use clear bic pens and the rubber suction part of an eye dropper to make syringes. Imagine the sterility of a needle melted into a clear bic pen and shared. These are called “dinkys,” it’s truly fucking archaic.
Oh yeah, by the way --- it’s very hard to get bleach. You get the point? (No pun intended.)
So, a guy comes into prison, gets hepatitis or AIDS, gets out and spreads it to the general population through continued drug use or sex with someone who like “bad boys.” Yeah, let’s talk about public safety.
Understand this, we inmates are indescribably stupid at times. Many of us continue to harm ourselves through drug use in prison, or prison politics, or myriad other ways that certainly don’t serve to better ourselves. These are choices we make --we can’t blame anyone, there’s nobody who forced us to do these things. But there is a responsibility somewhere to make tools available to give inmates a wider array of options, or at least a direction of some sort. Someone must step up and focus on where the real problem is, and it’ ain’t cell phones.
I just walked around my entire building and looked at every memo, every bulletin, every sign up sheet, every poster, and found NOT ONE THING about recovery. Seriously, not one. This building houses 260 people or so, of whom easily 200 have had some sort of drug or alcohol problem. Crazy.
In prison, we have one AA/NA meeting per week. That is the ONLY program we have available to us for the treatment of addiction that you don’t have to meet criteria for to get in. And you have to sign up for what is supposed to be an anonymous meeting. CDCR? What “R?”
Sometimes you have to really know and understand that help is available in order to seek help.
Keepin it real, sober for two years, 10 months and 15 days, JAG.
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Comments (8)
I am sure there would be a certain % of i/m who would inroll in programs if they were availible – but probibly most would not. But if you make their release dependent upon partisipation in progrems, there would probibly be grater success & recidevism rates would drop radicilly. I suspect many are comfortible in there disfunction.
Posted by donthate | October 15, 2009 03:16 PM
Just before President Clinton got into hot water with Monica Lewinsky, he was considering putting a $17 Billion peer-based treatment program into the prison system.
I think it was called treatment on remand, or a mandatory treatment commitment.
Guess they figured that if you are going to spend 7 years in prison you might as well go to peer based treatment and maybe something would take.
We don't know the details as Monica screwed up the rest of the Clinton presidency.
Perhaps Obama will catch wind of this...
Posted by Charley_sf | October 15, 2009 03:38 PM
Congrats JAG on your sobriety...!!!
Posted by PrisonMovement | October 15, 2009 03:49 PM
Hey Charley_sf
I think that would be a GREAT idea....and should be in place in every jail and prison in the US. Some wont want recovery-but at least getting taste of recovery could be a tool for them on the outs.
Posted by PrisonMovement | October 15, 2009 03:55 PM
No Rehab = inmates returning to prison. Repeat Customers = more $ for the prison industry.
Posted by Casey_Jones | October 15, 2009 04:49 PM
Thanks for the congrats. It is a sad state but that really is how it is.
Posted by Jag | October 15, 2009 05:52 PM
Congrats on your sobriety! That is awesome! Thanks for sharing. Those of us on the outside need to know this crap. My son has yet to tell me anything about anything that went on during his time. We can't fight for change if we don't know the reality.
Posted by Monica Morton | October 16, 2009 07:28 AM
The California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation policy is inmates are not eligible for a Substance Abuse Program until two years before their release. I was very concerned about the 690 people who were sentenced to life under Three Strikes. I asked Matt Cate about this problem and his answer was he does not have the resources. So these lifers will continue to fall prey to those dealers who make it their hustle. Matt Cate can find $7.7 billion dollars to build 16,000 new beds, but can’t find the resources to treat the thousands of users he already has! It is my belief Matt Cates is fully aware he is perpetuating the prison system with his policy. Like a field of dreams, build new prison beds and he will fill them. No one benefits except the CCPOA.
Posted by Frank Courser | October 16, 2009 02:23 PM