ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When a New Mexico woman stuck a broom straw through a hole in a speaker that separated her from her inmate husband at a prison visitation room, officials at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas, N.M., knew what was happening.
The prison officials rushed the pair in an effort to stop what they believed was an attempt to smuggle drugs, even if it was just a minute amount.
Connected to the straw was an orange-colored string that authorities say was laced with Suboxone, a narcotic used to treat heroin addicts by suppressing withdrawal symptoms.
Prison officials in New Mexico, and elsewhere across the country, say efforts to smuggle Suboxone are on the rise. In recent months, state corrections department officials say they have seen attempts to smuggle in broken or smashed traces of Suboxone to inmates who are looking to either use the drug, or sell it. Among the states that have reported such cases are Maine, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania.
In some instances, family members have tried to pass the drug inside balloons through a hug or kiss; others have placed Suboxone on the back of stamps or children’s coloring books. In other cases, guards have been accused of taking part in elaborate contraband rings.
Prison officials have begun watching out for new ways that inmates try to get their hands on the narcotic, which gives users an intense high similar to heroin.
“They try everything,” said Dwayne Santistevan, administrator of New Mexico’s Security Threat Intelligence Unit for the state’s prison system.
As a drug that treats opiate addiction, Suboxone is considered to have a lower potential for abuse than methadone, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug was approved by the FDA in 2002, requires a doctor’s prescription and must be prescribed at a doctor’s office instead of at a treatment clinic.
No one is sure why Suboxone has become a growing presence in prisons.
Corrections departments say it’s too early to calculate the number of busts, and that the narcotic is just one of many drugs officials seek to intercept. Officials believe it may be partly because the drug can be relatively easily obtained from doctors.
But Joseph Ponte, commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, said it “definitely is the drug of choice now.”
“I can’t seem to remember recently when a drug bust we had didn’t involve Suboxone,” he said.
New Mexico Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel said states such as New Mexico, where heroin abuse is a serious problem, are especially vulnerable since it has among the most heroin addicts in the country.
Some doctors prescribe Suboxone to patients claiming to be addicts, and prisons are also home to a number of inmates struggling with heroin addictions, he said.
“We definitely need an educational effort because this affects us all,” Marcantel said. “And we’re not alone in fighting this.”
In October, for example, Pennsylvania officials broke up a prison drug-smuggling scheme using postage stamps to conceal Suboxone. Four people in the Bucks County Prison were charged with conspiracy.
The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency charged four people in March 2011 in connection with a drug smuggling operation involving Suboxone.
Authorities said an 18-year-old woman allegedly tried to smuggle Suboxone in the waistband of her pants as part of the scheme.
Ponte said Maine officials also have had to watch magazine subscriptions since inmates were sending magazines received directly from sources back to family members so they could send them back laced with Suboxone.
Maine prevents magazines in prisons other than those coming straight from magazine distributors.
“I’ve been around a long time,” Ponte said. “And this was a new one to me.”
Officials in a Cape May County jail in New Jersey last year broke up a smuggling ring after finding Suboxone-laced coloring book pages with depictions of Snow White and Cinderella and the words “To Daddy” scribbled on top. Three inmates and two women faced charges in that case.
To battle the jump in Suboxone smuggling, New Mexico prison officials are training guards on how to look for the drug in mail, during inmate visits and other interactions. Officials say they also are looking into new technology to help spot the drug, though they were reluctant to give details over fears that inmates may try to circumvent new efforts.
Prison officials worry that if steps aren’t taken now to stem the leaks of the drug into prisons, the narcotic might flood jails and make it harder for officials to root it out, especially since it is easy to hide and smuggle.
In the meantime, Joe Garcia, warden for the Central New Mexico Corrections Department, said jail officials just have to be alert for the next innovative attempt to get Suboxone behind bars.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Garcia said. “But the important thing is to not let our guards down.”
If things weren’t so desparate in Maine due to cut backs and poor policies thrown around like litter by the current Governor..perhaps people wouldn’t need to Act out of Desperation?
Are you seriously blaming drug addiction on the Governor and cut backs that he has made? That is one of the more ridiculous things I have heard.
Drug addicts are drug addicts because they chose to take drugs in the first place. Some will say that a doctor prescribed it- which is why they became addicted, but just because the doctor prescribes it, you don’t need to take it.
Agreed, and I’m pretty sure the doctor didn’t tell them to abuse the dosage either. People seem to blame the doctor or anyone except themselves.
Umm you have no idea what your talking about. Taking the prescribed dose can cause physical addiction. Has absolutely nothing to do with abusing it. Yes, people do but you can get wds from taking te prescribed doses for certain amounts of time. Even as little as a few weeks.
So it’s the doctors fault that all these punks robbing pharmacies and banks want their drugs? I’d be willing to bet that they’ve never seen a doctor.
Ah, no but thanks for over-analyzing my comment. I am one of those people who was prescribed narcotics for a very severe accident and became physically dependent. I never robbed pharmacies or banks, I paid my own bills and way, never had insurance or “help” from the wonderful people like you, (barf). Like I said, you have NO idea what you are talking about. And actually, im sure MANY of them have. More than you think, but yes, some haven’t. If doctors didn’t push heavy narcotics on patients, then the problem may calm down some.
Right. Nobody did drugs before Paul Lepage was elected. Maine was the land of mild and honey. mmkay?
has nothing to do with that, as you can see it’s becoming a problem clear across the US… the problem is sending addicts to jail, taking away their replacement therapy drugs, and not giving them the drug counciling they need. then they release them back in to society to repeat the process until they’re killed, OD, or sent else where. weeding out the drug isn’t gonna solve anything if you don’t change the current failing policies that are already in-place
That’s a croc, if they had t work and pay for the treatment drugs and therapy with their own money they have to WORK and earn themselves, you would hear about more success stories, of course the best thing is to say no to drugs and not become an addict and expect Joe the taxpayer to bail you out of the bad choices in life.
As we know the only people that tax payers should bail out is the ultra rich corporate elite right?
Drug use and crime are symptoms of a root cause called poverty. Less education and less money equates to increased crime and drug use. Treat the root cause and the symptoms go away.
Like we bailed out the banks for their “poor” choices, which incidently made a lot of bankers very rich?
I agree with you there, we should never bail out business, there’s a reason when they go belly up, you don’t reward that by giving them a blank check. The same goes with GM they should have had to go bankrupt, maybe then we could afford the new cars that last about 6-7 years that go through the Maine Winters.
Bailing out the banks was wrong and just rewarded risky behavior. Lettign GM go bankrupt would have cost upwards of 3 million jobs being lost, good paying jobs at GM and all the other good paying jobs in their supply line.
Only conservatives who want to see Obama fail and CEOs of multi-national corporations who want to see wages for all American’s drop think that letting GM fail would have been a good thing.
Drug addiction and drug violence are destroying our young addicts, our middle-aged addicts and our elderly addicts. Addicts are from all ethnicities, all income brackets and all areas of our nation. And there is no single treatment that works – because it takes motivation on the part of both the addict and support (both financial and psychological) by society to develop and stick with a treatment regimen for each and every individual addict. What may help is early education and intervention during school years, when those first “tastes” of drugs may begin a path towards addiction. But middle-aged and elderly addicts need the same support. What we don’t need is moralizing, despising and pacifying. Antiquated laws need to be examined for their efficacy or outmoded nature. Treatment centers need to be developed and they need to be funded – God knows politicians waste enough money on useless crap and foreign countries that hate us. Why not put that money where it will do some good for OUR citizens?
We already have “early education” during school years, and a lot of it. They are there for an education. What ever happened to the parent’s responsibility to teach their children morals and manners, or correcting their children’s bad behavior problems? Contrary to Hillary, it’s not the village’s responsibility to raise your child, it’s yours.
It’s a growing concern because it staves off horrible withdrawal .Whoever wrote this article did not much research on this drug. You do not get high from it. It’s in part an opiate antagonist. If you’re not an opiate user this drug will make you very ill. This drug stops the painful withdrawal symptoms from happening. To say addicts can just stop if they wanted to is a huge misunderstanding of addiction ! What may have once started off as a choice is no longer theirs once addicted. The chemistry in the brain has changed. This is fact people. It now is a mental illness. To say they could change if they wanted to is ignorant of the disease of addiction.
The key is “What may have started off with a choice”.
People have had enough of paying for other people’s choices with our tax dollars, whether it’s drugs that they made a decision to take, or children that they decided to have knowing that they had no means to pay for in the first place. Personal responsibility is non-existent in a growing portion of the population.
After years of trying every method to help these people, it appears that there is only one way to change the behavior problems, and that is to help them one time, and one time only. They will be responsible for their decisions after that.
If it takes “horrible withdrawal”, well they earned it with their decision to take drugs in the first place, and maybe if they have to experience it, they may not want to repeat it.
But, I am guessing you don’t mind paying the military/industrial complex many times more money that we spend on all the welfare programs?
You are correct.
I suppose you think that we should just open our borders and also take whatever the terrorists want to give, and turn the other cheek, so we can support more welfare.
I’m not against welfare. I’m against long term welfare and welfare for non-residence.
I read a story last week that put the threat of terrorism into perspective. Did you know you have the same chance of being killed by your furniture as you do of dying from a terrorist attack?
Why do we have to spend more on defense then the rest of the world combined and yet Republicans want to spend even more? What are they so afraid of?
Again with the revenge mentality and ignorance of addiction. Addiction is a neurologically based disease. For many years recovery specialists have compared alcoholism or addictions to a physical disease: like diabetes. In reality addictions are more closely related to a neurological disorder like Tourette’s Syndrome* than they are to diabetes.
If the problems people suffer from stem from severe alcoholism or addiction, you must accept that these problems are not primarily mental or free will issues. Addictions are not about will power. The problems facing addicts, alcoholics, and their families are miserable, disgusting, and infuriating. They are often hopelessly discouraging. But to imagine that an addict “could change if he wanted to” is a serious misunderstanding of the long term dynamic of addictive disorder. The fact is precisely that an addict cannot change in the long run even if he wants to! That is the definition of addiction: “the loss of control over the use of a substance.” It is important to understand that this loss of control is manifested not in terms of days or weeks, but in longer term behaviors: terms of months and years.
The reason addicts have lost control is because they have suffered permanent physical neurological changes based in their brains and nervous systems. The disorder manifests in long term obsessive-compulsive behaviors outside the realm of the addicts own control. It is true enough that the use of chemicals begins with chosen behavior. But if alcoholism or addiction develops, the problem has moved outside the realm of free choice. It has developed into a long term mental and physical neurological disorder. All the emotional ‘feelings’ involved in drug or alcohol seeking are based in neurology. Addiction is based in physical dependency created by altered neurotransmitter balances, and driven by millions upon millions of new living, functioning active neurological pathways which have been established to sustain the condition in the addicts brain. The new neurological pathways are permanently established, and they will not just disappear. The primary neurological disorder is only complicated by physical dependence on the substances. The physical dependence on the substances is secondary! Physical drug withdrawal does not change the underlying neurological addictive disorder. After drug withdrawal, long term overpowering cravings are predictable. These cravings are, in reality, spontaneous nerve impulses. Even in the longer term, overwhelming cravings are outside the addicts control.
The
article makes it look like the drug is only used by heroin addicts-
false. Everyone whining on here about “choices” should
think about doctors over-prescribing narcotics.
The doctor a person trusts makes the choice to put narcotics in a patient’s
life, some prescription after prescription.
It happens way too much, – people getting hooked on legal-to-them prescription
painkillers make a suboxone user. Health care in the U.S. is contributing to
this problem as much as dealers on the streets. It is time to look at this
problem in a different way because what we have been doing for the last 30ish
years is not working.
I’m left wondering why the jailers don’t want inmates to have suboxone?
Is it because they get wild and beat up on people?
Is it because they want the inmates to suffer more as part of their punishment? If the drug is used mostly to ease suffering then why don’t we just make it available by the truckload?
Maybe because we have to pay for it!
I am not an expert on drug use and side effects but I do know that my husband (who is a “Recovering” addict) had been buying suboxone from a so called friend since April (I didnt know until 3 weeks ago).. he was so moody and angry all the time and 3 weeks ago he went crazy and attacked me in front of our kids… if that affects everybody like that I can see why they dont want inmates to have it.
Sounds dangerous. I hope your husband gets the help he needs to overcome his addiction, and that there is a safe place for you and the children, if he ever tries to attack you again.
Doubtful it was suboxone. Very doubtful.
It was.
Say it ain’t so Joe.
The war on drugs continues to cause problems. The war is a fraud which stops people from getting the medical attention they need for their illness. Top the war and stop the madness.