All rights reserved. To say that this experience has been highly upsetting is an understatement, Newman-Polk wrote in an October 2020 letter to Massachusetts DOC Commissioner Carol A. Mici, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. It is sold legally as incense or spice at head shops. Its also a significant risk, because those COs are potentially exposed to whatever illicit substance might be lurking in the mail. After waiting six or seven weeks, he asked about the results. ", After spending two years going through the Bureau of Prisons' grievance process and appealing his disciplinary sanctions, fruitlessly, Blaisure filed a petition in federal court in July 2016 seeking to restore his lost good time credits. "When they find that group, they then proceed to go through a reaction that has a color as its product.". Liquid K2 on Paper. researches product purchases and suppliers. Contraband drugs are a big problem in correctional facilities, especially Suboxone and synthetic versions of marijuana, often called K2 or Spice. It's not easy being in prison, and having a little something like Liquid K2 in prisons can surely make it a little easy for them Liquid K2 spray at the largest drug store in USA & Canada Roger Terry, an inmate in a Maryland state prison, filed a lawsuit in 2011 after he was put in solitary confinement for nearly 200 days following a positive NIK test of coffee grounds that was later invalidated by a crime lab. Do Not Sell My Personal Information. He told me he never rapped in his life, but that was all he could do to not lose his mind. Basinger said the measure is necessary to prevent liquid K2 from entering the prison system. On the street, the same liquid in many areas sells for $100 or more an ounce, officials said. So the incarcerated people who are accused can either quickly accept responsibility and face lesser punishment despite being innocent, or give up privileges and possibly enter solitary confinement while awaiting more accurate lab data. "It took a bunch of us to take him down. The officer then moves on to NIK Test U, which either turns blue to indicate a presumptive positive result for methamphetamines, or burgundy. It has become the most comprehensive and trusted online destination for correctional professionals nationwide. "It's just not designed to work that way. and that the data you submit is exempt from Do Not Sell My Personal Information requests. Efforts to thwart smuggling range from prohibiting book deliveries to a postcard-only policy to providing scans or copies to inmates rather than the originals. Copyright 2023 Steffey is no longer incarcerated, but he is still trying to fight the BOP for stripping him of good behavior credits and throwing him in solitary confinement for five months based on what he says is an unverified test with a well-established track record of leading to wrongful arrests. Paul covers state government and affiliated issues. Writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rich Lord described the K2 problem at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Huntingdon. Once, prison screeners found K2 concealed in a baby's diapers on a visitation day. And the drug itself is more problematic, often causing erratic and dangerous behavior. It is actually difficult to figure out what the reaction might be, said Frunzi. Instead, a BOP disciplinary hearing officer found Steffey guilty of introducing contraband narcotics into the prison. Blaisure has reason to sound proud of beating the rap. And the list of known substances that can trigger a positive result in these tests is ever-expanding. "They have seizures; get super high. In yet another case, an incarcerated man named Julian Green accepted legal mail from the Boston College Innocence Program in 2019, though the parcel was taken away for testing and came back positive for K2. I know its costing us in terms of overtime and paper, Meyers said. Copyright 2023 In 2011, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture concluded that solitary confinement beyond 15 days constituted cruel and inhumane punishment. At the Douglas County Jail and at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, letters from attorneys are being checked. In 2013, Travis County, Texas, stopped accepting guilty pleas for low-level drug possession before official crime lab results came in. The Massachusetts Department of Correction allegedly uses a test called NARK 20023 from Sirchie's NARK II product line. The Legislature made K2 illegal in September 2015. Likewise, if the NIK colorimetric test for methamphetamine is presumptive the same colorimetric test would be a presumptive test for 'Equal,' the sugar substitute. Outside of prison, those accused of drug possession based on a field test at least have some recourse to the criminal court system, where the high standards of evidence require presumptive positive field tests to be confirmed by crime labs. It is labor-intensive. ALL TEST RESULTS MUST BE CONFIRMED BY AN APPROVED ANALYTICAL LABORATORY! a note for a NARK II product on Sirchies website reads. Department of Correction sources confirmed a wide-scale investigation was underway at the prison, as well as a warehouse used to store dry goods before they went into the prison. Your shot is staying the way it is. Its chemical makeup is routinely changed by overseas manufacturers to avoid detection, according to authorities. Right off the bat, when you have a piece of paper and you pull out your field test kit, you've made the wrong decision," she says. Legal High K2 Spice Paper 200.00 $ - 1,500.00 $ Each A4 sheet is infused with 25 ml=0.845351 fluid oz of liquid K2. The fact is, even if Steffey is lying about his own conduct, he's right about the unreliability of these field tests. He specializes in tax and transportation issues, following the governor and the state prison system. A 2018 drug seizure in North Carolina originally touted as "$2 million worth of 'the deadly opioid fentanyl'" turned out to be white sugar. For example, X-ray body scanners have been shown to detect physical concealment of contraband while also deterring future attempts. You can buy the infused A4 plain paper and write a letter to send to your buddy in prison. I guarantee it.". The effects of synthetic marijuana on an individual can vary widely. Heather Harris is an assistant professor of forensic science at Arcadia University who trains future chemists to use these color tests. Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are snarky, offensive, or off-topic. On December 4, 2014, he says, a correctional officer confiscated his pouch and tested its contents for drugs. Ive also seen it where lads have dropped down dead, had heart attacks, gone into comas, gone loopy and ended up being sectioned because of it.. "I can't even count how many people I saw that happen to," Blaisure says of inmates being hit with bogus contraband accusations, "but I can guarantee you I'm one of the very few that I know of that took it all the way to federal court and won.". The results of this test are merely presumptive. Shop. Writing for Newsweek, Michelle McPhee reported Hernandez had a Bible open to John 3:16 in his cell and had scrawled the verse in red ink on his forehead. He hung himself by wrapping a bed sheet around his neck and tying it to a bar on the window of his cell. Fearing the potential of severe consequences, some people incarcerated in Massachusetts Department of Correction facilities are starting to refuse correspondence altogether, forcing attorneys to drive long distances to hand-deliver court documents and other important communications to their clients. Lexipol. In prison, inmates often demand to see each other's paperwork to verify what they're in for and whether they've snitched. GREEN K2 DARK GALLON is one of our latest product we got in stock.Liquid K2, a type of synthetic marijuana that causes erratic behavior when smoked, is being smuggled to inmates through the mail, sprayed on letters and pages of books. "Three guys went off about the same time and overdosed after smoking K2," he said. Yet the results are up for interpretation. Synthetic marijuana drug K-2 gaining popularity in prisons Westgate Plaza, 82 Hillside Blvd, Lakewood, NJ 08701, United States order@chemicalmedshop.com 24/ 7 +1 718-814 . While the eternal spiritual state of his soul cant be known with any certainty, what is known for sure is there was K2, a form of synthetic marijuana, in him when he died. Lexipol. Prisoners are tested for illicit drugs such as heroin and marijuana, but the standard urines tests dont screen for the metabolites from synthetic marijuana. But liquid K2 sprayed on paper or fiber presents new challenges. Let's see the test. The New York Offices of the Inspector General declined to comment on the investigation. Trace detection tools can help make mail inspection faster and more thorough. We're going to go with what happened in the office. State investigators both inside the prison system and out blame the growing problem with K2 on its cheap price and the fact that routine drug screens fail to detect its presence. to know more about Smiths Detection? The BOP then expunged the violation from Blaisure's record, making his lawsuit moot. More extensive screening tests that detect K2 can cost over six times that amount, officials said. These are mind-altering chemicals created by humans or sprayed on dried, crushed plant material for smoking, or sold as a liquid to evaporate and breathe in cigarettes and other devices. It is also available in clear liquid form that, in prison, can cost from $800 to $1,000 an ounce - perhaps even more in some units. The footage shows the officer performing a NARK II test for methamphetamines, which turned dark red instead of blue, indicating a negative result, according to the manufacturer. Safariland's instructions note that "only after Test A goes from orange to brown AND Test U turns can you presumptively identify the substance of an amphetamine-type compound. Procedures and protocols used by correctional facilities can vary, but one idea for efficient use according to Frunzi is: You can take one swab for the IONSCAN 600, drag it across 10 or 20 pieces of mail, and as long as the machine says the swab is clean, you confirmed that all 20 pieces of mail are clean. "They don't want to hear that, because it's one of their tools that they have in their toolbox to get rid of people without question," he says. He also lost 41 days of good time credits and had visitations suspended for nearly six months. In a second article, McPhee said verifying the presence of K2 in Hernandezs system led to a State Police raid at the Souza Baronwski Correctional Center (SBCC), the prison facility where Hernandez died. A tablet system will allow almost all inmate communications to be conducted virtually, without paper, thus eliminating the need to screen snail mail and books. The paper is then cut up into small pieces and smoked. One was spaced out of his mind. The problem is twofold. "The substance was determined to be chocolate. In recent letters to the Houston Chronicle, convicts report that a growing number of prisoners are overdosing from the drug - though prison statistics do not confirm that, perhaps due to the difficulty in validating its presence through standard drug tests. The NIK Color test for heroin does not meet any recognized forensic scientific standard.". Meyers said a big portion of the tablets cost will be covered by inmate purchases made via the service. It's a big epidemic in prison.". At the Nebraska Corrections Department, Frakes said a surge in K2 issues earlier this year might have been associated with inmates receiving COVID-19 stimulus checks, and thus having extra money to spend. A burgundy result on Test U, in conjunction with the orange-brown result in Test A, is considered presumptive positive for amphetamines. These drug-laced papers can be a significant risk to COs and others tasked with mail inspection and delivery. Now it's K2.". Enter https://www.corrections1.com/ and click OK. Such is the majesty of the law that a U.S. District Court judge dismissed his suit, ruling that he had suffered no deprivation of due process or cruel or unusual punishment. Google synthetic marijuana urine tests. You can even order the kits through Amazon. Six staff members were caught smuggling drugs, including. Although the BOP requires all positive urinalysis screenings for drugs to be verified by forensic labs, it has no similar policy for contraband tests. But liquid K2, when sprayed on paper, is odorless and colorless, and there are no easy field tests to determine if something has been soaked in the stuff. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Gov. The investigator then tested another piece of the paper with NIK Test U, which "turned an immediate dark burgundy color, indicating Amphetamines.". Not only was he concerned about how the K2 accusations would impact him, McKenna was worried about his client. The staffer noted that the papers felt "unusually thick" and gritty and looked discolored. A variety of tools can help minimize the risk to corrections staff as well as keep contraband out. She once tried to send her incarcerated client, Eugene Ivey, a legal package months after he was granted parole. New York's prison system suspended the use of similar tests last summer because of such worries. And this is the rub of Steffey's argument in his lawsuit. Second, if an inmate is caught with synthetic marijuana, it is a relatively minor offensea 300 series incident reportequivalent to illicit tobacco possession. Drug Believed To Be Sickening Prison Employees Explained By Addiction Expert CBS Pittsburgh 114K subscribers Subscribe 36K views 4 years ago An addiction expert says he doesn't understand how. "That functional group, however, is not specific to methamphetamine. Another guy thought he was God and that the end of the world was coming, slobbering and acting like a five year old. In general its disorientation, inability to stand or think straight, lack of control of one's limbs, etc.. When we got locked down this guy went totally crazy. More extensive screening tests that detect K2 can cost over six times that amount, officials said. A BOP investigator tested the legal papers addressed to the inmate with NIK Test A, the general screening test, and noted that it "had an immediate orange rapidly turning brown color, indicating Amphetamines," according to court records. They blamed much of the problem on relatives and friends of convicts because they smuggle it in on visitation days. Lower federal courts, building onHill's precedent, have held that a single positive drug test is sufficient to support disciplinary action; that those tests do not have to have a 100 percent confidence factor; and that inmates have no due process right to have those tests verified by an outside lab. I read that K2 is in fact the No. He would not have done anything to jeopardize that, and a serious disciplinary offense like the one he was wrongly accused of could have resulted in the parole decision being revoked, the lawsuit alleged. Presumptive positive drug tests give the prosecutors leverage with which to pressure defendants in this way. All rights reserved. The k2 has been marketed as herbal incense, or "herbal smoking blends", and sold under common names like K2, Spice, and Synthetic Marijuana. Now, blank sheets of paper presoaked with K2 can be purchased over the internet, with instructions on how to brush or spray the dangerous hallucinogenic onto paper and fibers. "But I promise you, it happens to people on the street too. The guards had found an ink pen with a suspicious orange substance inside. "From Day One, I denied it," Steffey says. Even the test manufacturer warns the results should be backed up by further evidence. But in the past two years, prison officials say they have launched a continuing series of targeted crackdowns on visitors and guards who are smuggling it to convicts and on inmates who pay up to $500 an ounce to have it smuggled in to them. This is not an error. It's not easy being in prison, and having a little something like Liquid K2 in prisons can surely make it a little easy for them Liquid K2 spray at the largest drug store in USA & Canada Liquid K2 spray has an unlimited number of ways to be used. Texas' prison system conducts random drug tests on convicts and staff at a cost of about $10 each. During this review, we have suspended testing. Copyright 2023 Corrections1. Federal inmates trying to fight NIK test determinations are caught in a bind: They have no procedural grounds to challenge their punishment as long as these tests are considered "some evidence," but none of them can get far enough in court to challenge the validity of that evidence, even though there is an ample record to support their claimsincluding from the government itself. The Bureau of Prisons uses drug field tests manufactured by Safariland. The BOP did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Texas lawmakers outlawed it in 2015. According to documents filed by the BOP in a 2019 lawsuit by Vasquez-Maldonado challenging his punishment, a BOP officer tested a fresh ink cartridge to see if a false positive resulted, but it did not. But in Massachusetts, confirming test results from chemicals found on prisoners mail can be a months-long process, according to the lawsuit. Nebraska prisons are implementing a similar system. Crime:four murders during a 2013 killing spree in Omaha. Inmates then smoke or ingest pieces of the soaked paper, or sell it to other inmates. The BOP also stripped him of 41 days of "good time" credit for keeping a clean disciplinary record. They are both big problems for prison populations, said Dr. Michael Frunzi, senior scientist and business development manager with Smiths Detection, which makes X-ray and other detection tools. The officer threw him in the Special Housing Unit (SHU)a sanitized term for solitary confinementfor five months, where he was held in a cell for at least 23 hours a day. "Inmates who were penalized for contraband drugs have been released from special housing units and their records were expunged,"The Auburn Citizenreported last August. They just do dumb shit. Toney said authorities are serious about cutting off the supply inside prisons: "If you're trying to bring it in, if you throw it out on the grounds for someone else to bring it in, we're gonna catch you and you're gonna be wearing matching uniforms with the person you came to see.". The testimony inChaconalso established that the term "presumptive positive," as used by law enforcement and prosecutors, was largely meaningless, since the tests can't discriminate between illicit substances and the dozens of known licit substances that also trigger color reactions. Douglas County immediately shreds the original, Meyers said, to comply with confidentiality requirements for attorney-client correspondence. In 2017, correctional officers at FCI Sheridan put Albarca and his cellmate, Carlos Vasquez-Maldonado, in the SHU and accused the two of possessing drugs in their cell. K2 spice spray is also called K2 spray. Category: Liquid K2. Safariland's NIK kits, as well as those produced by other companies, aren't supposed to be used on impure materials. Corrections1 is revolutionizing the way in which the corrections community finds relevant news, See other articles on new psychoactive substances (NPS) on this website such as: Not Meant for Human Consumption.. He also made red ink marks on his hands and feet, mimicking the stigmata of the crucifixion of Christ. It's not easy being in prison, and having a little something like Liquid K2 in prisons can surely make it a little easy for them Liquid K2 spray at the largest drug store in USA & Canada But this is not just freak occurrence within a single Massachusetts state prison. Meanwhile, low evidence standards make it just about impossible for federal inmates to challenge the results of these tests in court. Nebraska Corrections, for instance, now bans shipments of books from Amazon and restricts purchases to one company, Edward R. Hamilton, which specializes in providing reading materials for correctional facilities. Unlike in the federal prison system, Massachusetts prisons send all field tests to outside labs for confirmation. Synthetic weed Prison has a strictly enforced social order, and sex criminals, especially those whose crimes involve children, are at the very bottom of itshunned at best. So inmates sometimes run background checks on each other to make sure no one is lying. Because Suboxone contains naloxone, its difficult to overdose, but its still possible. Liquid K2 in prisons can be used in various ways and it would surely let the inmates have a relaxing and peaceful time. Crime:1993 murders of Brandon Teena, 21, Lisa Lambert, 24, and Phillip DeVine, 22, in a farmhouse near Humboldt; the story of the transgender Brandon was fictionalized in the film Boys Dont Cry.. He insists it had nothing to do with drugs. Its cost on the street: about $20 an ounce. He wrote three notesone to his fiance, the mother of his daughter, one to his daughter and one to a man identified as his prison boyfriend. As a result, prisoners are allegedly being given solitary confinement, losing visitation privileges, or facing other punishments. Early Wednesday morning on April 19, 2017, Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell. "I knew it was '2,'" prison lingo for K2, a synthetic marijuana that now reigns as fastest-growing drug contraband in Texas' massive prison system. The problem of drugs and alcohol and other contraband in prisons is age-old, he said. Staffing at the two prisons will shift immediately to two 12-hour shifts a day from three eight-hour shifts a day to allow required security p, Three inmates set fire to their cell rooms on Saturday at the Tecumseh state prison, and a staff member was seriously injured in an assault on, Signs advertising cannabis complete with large marijuana leaves have sprouted up across Nebraska. But now they are further restricted to buying books for inmates from certain suppliers. "When confirmatory testing is done by the Department of Justice [in] some Grand Jury charged cases there turns out to be no controlled substances," the court noted. A lot of the lawyers that we talked to said that theyre now driving to the prisons where their clients are locatedwhich sometimes takes hoursto hand-deliver letters to be able to communicate with their clients, Leonida said. Watch out for paper with a waxy appearance or yellow tint, as both can indicate that the paper contains drugs. There is no parole in the federal prison system, so accruing good time credit is one of the only ways that inmates can shave time off their sentences. This paper is odorless and colorless. A man prepares to smoke K2 or "Spice", a synthetic marijuana drug. Want They were later told that to reverse some of those punishments, they could simply admit that McKenna intentionally sent the contraband. This form of K2 is much harder to detect than traditional leafy K2 products that look more like marijuana. By the time Green ultimately received the legal communication, it was unreadable. The state holds onto the originals for several days in a secure location before destroying them. Before that, authorities said it was even harder to bust anyone - even convicts - for possessing it. All rights reserved. Don't come and ask us about it anymore. "It used to be marijuana or something else. You let it in, you bring it in. A common smuggling route is to hide the strips under postage stamps, stickers or tape. Whenever we close a pathway, they find a new one.. This means that a presumptive positive for amphetamines in NIK Test A would be confirmed by NIK Test U by default. A member of the security team at the prison said these guys who use K2 are often zombie-like: Theyre just groaning, moaning and not able to understand anything thats being said to them. SCI Huntingdon first noticed K2 about eighteen months ago. To avoid that scenario, some incarcerated people are no longer accepting mail, which cuts off an important way to get in touch with their attorneys during the pandemic, the lawsuit alleges. 3 contraband after homemade alcohol and cigarettes, which are still incredibly popular contraband.. But it seems the methods used to uncover K2 use need to be more accurate, as the negative consequences to inmates for false positives are so serious. Because these molecules are versions of THC but not actual THC, the prevailing idea is that they will not turn up in a drug screen, he said. | A November 2016 article in The Daily Mail described a documentary, the Secret Life of Prisons, that said drugs (particularly Spice) are widely available. Almost no one else ever does. Some defendantsfacing an extended stay in jail and threats from prosecutors about the sentences they'll get if they turn down a dealplead guilty to crimes they know they didn't commit. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images). | Liquid K2 is the latest contraband problem for Nebraska prisons, jails Paul Hammel Jun 27, 2021 Updated Aug 1, 2022 0 paul.hammel@owh.com, 402-618-0009, twitter.com/paulhammelowh 0 Comments.
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