Fun_People Archive
15 Jan
Prison Drug of Choice

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 97 15:12:54 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Prison Drug of Choice

Forwarded-by: "Jack D. Doyle" <doylej@peak.org>
Forwarded-by: Kevin Johnsrude <kevinj@roguewave.com>

According to "The Oregonian", 1/14/97, Oregon prisons have been smoke-free
for a year.  This has lead to tobacco, matches and lighters being classified
as prison contraband and has resulted in tobacco becoming the prison's
number one drug problem.

Inmates pay $200 for a regular cigarette, which is broken up into "pin
joints" and sold for $20 apiece.  Inmates stick bits of wire into electric
outlets and try to light their cigarettes from the resulting arcs.
Inmate-on-inmate assaults have increased because some inmates have
accumulated more tobacco debt than they can pay.

According to corrections officers, heroin has virtually disappeared from
the prisons as inmates organize the smuggling of tobacco into the prison.
"Nicotine is the most addictive drug we have here," said one corrections
officer.

[Making it illegal makes it valuable and creates a market, eh?  Hmmm...  -psl]

© 1997 Peter Langston