Not all prison care packages are created equal; take, for instance, the one that recently arrived in Florida (where else?) that had Suboxone hidden underneath the stamps in love letters.
Suboxone, for the uninitiated, is the medication that is touted as the solution to our worldwide opiate problem: just get addicts on Suboxone, the thinking in some circles goes, and the problem is solved! Alas, Suboxone is an opiate itself—one that some treatment centers and doctors are happy to leave addicts on for the rest of their lives.
Okay, so here’s the story—as well as proof that Suboxone isn’t perhaps the non-addictive wonder drug its manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser would like people to believe: the Orlando Sentinel reports that Jeremy Weber asked his 18-year-old girlfriend Sarah Laurito to send her the drugs in coded phone conversations. Her arrest report said that Weber told her to “go to the subway behind the food stamp office.” Each time he said it, according to the report, he would emphasize the words “sub,” “behind” and “stamp.” Once she understood the deal, Laurito agreed and off her Suboxone-hidden letter went. (It’s safe to say that if the postal service offered Suboxone-laced stamps, they wouldn’t be hemorrhaging money every year.)
Laurito was charged with introducing contraband into jail, but has avoided being behind bars after posting bond. Meanwhile, Weber has likely increased his time in jail after these additional charges of introducing contraband there. He is currently behind bars on a probation violation.
While stamps are certainly a unique attempt at smuggling drugs into jail, it isn’t the most bizarre or morbid attempt ever attempted. Here are some other jailhouse smuggling attempts that you won’t find on an episode of Oz.
A Baby
A baby holding a balloon isn’t uncommon. A baby holding a balloon filled with 20 grams of pot while entering a prison definitely is. The “sad and desperate” attempt at smuggling drugs took place in a New Zealand prison in 2010, but it became clear after the woman who did it spoke to officials that she was pressured into doing so. “Drugs have such a stronghold on some prisoners that they will blackmail friends, threaten people with violence or send gang associates around to the family home to frighten or harm their partners. It’s abhorrent,” said prison manager Chris Gisler. Despite Gisler’s empathy, the woman faced drug charges and was banned from entering Northland prison for 12 months.
Dead Birds and Eye Sockets and Diapers (Oh My!)
What’s up with New Zealand and their fucked up attempts at prison drug smuggling? Apparently prisoners were so desperate for methamphetamines in January 2007 that that they were getting friends to throw it over jail walls in seemingly anything it would fit in. This included the bodies of dead birds, eye sockets of those who had lost their eyes in fights and diapers of babies visiting prisons. In the understatement of the year, Karen Urwin of the Corrections Department said that “some are quite desperate [and]will resort to any wacky measures.”
A Coloring Book
When grown men are receiving children’s coloring books as gifts, it’s safe to say that something is amiss. And it was in March 2011 when a New Jersey prison charged three inmates and their family members with dissolving Suboxone (yep, that again) into a paste and then painting it into a coloring book that was mailed to the facility. In case this story doesn’t disturb you enough, just know that several of the pages had “To Daddy” scribbled on top. Cape May County Sheriff Gary Schaffer later said he had “never seen anything like this” in his 38 years of law enforcement.
Sponsored DISCLAIMER: This is a paid advertisement for California Behavioral Health, LLC, a CA licensed substance abuse treatment provider and not a service provided by The Fix. Calls to this number are answered by CBH, free and without obligation to the consumer. No one who answers the call receives a fee based upon the consumer’s choice to enter treatment. For additional info on other treatment providers and options visit www.samhsa.gov.
