Inmates in California state prisons receive several comfort items at the taxpayer’s expense. Convicted felons get free lotions, hygiene items, and opioids. Yes, inmates are allowed to get high for free in a misguided and unscientific approach to curb opioid abuse.
Durg abuse is rampant in the California prison system, every year several inmates die from drug overdoses while housed in a state prison. In-custody overdose deaths peaked in 2019 with a rate of 51 deaths for every 100,000 inmates. The state trained and equipped correctional officers with Naloxone, a lifesaving medication, allowing the overdose death rate to drop to only 25 deaths per 100,000 inmates in 2021.
In a poorly planned attempt to wean inmates off opioid abuse, CDCR began giving inmates opioids. Inmates are provided Suboxone strips which mimics the narcotic effects of heroin and other opiates. Inmates quickly took to this new drug and began abusing it. Suboxone is very popular with the inmate population both for getting high and to trade for prison black market items. When Suboxone fist rolled out, inmates could sell the strips for about $50; now as the strips are handed out freely to most the population, the underground price has fallen to about $5-10 per strip.
Inmates sometimes hoard several strips at a time, dissolve the strips in water, and inject the solution. Many recent inmate overdoses have been due to Suboxone abuse. Correctional officers, as the first line responders, are put at risk as they are required to perform lifesaving measures to include CPR, administration of Naloxone, and other care.
Proponents of the Suboxone program are very misinformed about the drug. One administrator tried to convince this author people cannot get a high off Suboxone. I had to inform this PhD candidate, inmates would not be selling their personal effects or giving sexual favors to obtain something that does not get them high. Suboxone contains buprenorphine and naloxone. The buprenorphine is what gets the inmates high, the included naloxone is intended to limit that high. Inmates quickly figured out to float the suboxone strips in water to remove or reduce the naloxone content.
Not only are taxpayers paying to get inmate’s high, Suboxone has proven to have negative long-term effects on the users. A 2013 long-term study of Suboxone by the Public Library of Science found long-term users had “a lower probability of being happy,” “over twice the probability of being anxious,” “tended to be less self-aware of sadness” and “had significantly less emotional expressiveness.” The report describes delayed responses that last up to three seconds when individuals were asked how they were feeling. While also getting the inmate high, Suboxone also has a narcoleptic effect on the inmate.
On the positive note, the prison gangs’ tax the inmate population regularly taking half their Suboxone issue. The gangs use sales of the Suboxone to fund their illicit programs and help control the gang members. Suboxone has added to the illicit prison economy providing some stability to inmate programing.
Much of the illicit Suboxone sales and abuse could be curbed by issuing Suboxone pills or injections; but California does not care about safe. Despite medical and custody staff’s pleadings, the strips are what is issued to the inmates.
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