Prison Officials Got The Wrong Message From Drug Smuggler
It’s not uncommon: more often than you might think, women are arrested trying to smuggle drugs into prison when they go visit their husbands. A few months ago, however, the drug that one women tried to smuggle into a Woodford Correctional Centre in Queensland, Australia, was—drum roll—buprenorphine. That’s right. The woman had 11 balloons filled with crushed up buprenorphine pills 
stuffed into her bra.
The fact that she got caught is not half as interesting as what she got caught with. Judy Spence, a Corrective Services minister said: “The message is simple: If you attempt to smuggle drugs or other contraband into our prisons, you will be caught, you will be prosecuted and you may end up doing jail time yourself.”
Wrong. The message is this: prisoners are desperate for treatment. Even if you crush up buprenorphine in its pure form, Subutex, and inject it or swallow it, you’re not going to get high like you would if you did the same thing with other opiate-based pills or shot heroin or morphine. Why would someone risk carrying that much of a drug into a prison—a drug that doesn’t really get you high—if it weren’t for treatment purposes?
One answer: It’s worth money. Whether or not the woman’s husband would use any of the drug himself, he could make quite a bit of money by selling it inside. But who would buy it? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not that hard to get high in prison. The only people who would be interested in bupe inside are those who are suffering from withdrawal and need help.
The real message here is that treatment is sorely lacking in prison. Maybe even they got some real help, they wouldn’t be so quick to return after release.
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