Santa Rita Jail and other prisons across the state are on high alert that a potent synthetic cannabis substitute is being smuggled into their jails, soaked into completely fake legal documents that the prisoners can just shred up and smoke.
A very interesting report in today’s Chronicle details a new drug-smuggling surge in California jails and prisons involving synthetic marijuana. At Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, staff told the Chronicle said they’re seizing the fake drug in prisoners’ mail up to three times every week. The Chronicle adds that the fake (but potent) synthetic marijuana has been seized “at more than a dozen jails and prisons across the state in recent months.”
These are probably low estimates on how much of the stuff is getting into jails and prisons. Because the smugglers are using a devious new tactic where they’re soaking fake legal documents in an aerosol or liquid version of the drug, and the prisoners can then just roll up or shred the documents, smoke them like joints, and get high in jail.
The new-ish drug is known as K2 or Spice, though has a number of other street names too. It’s not derived from real cannabis, and according to the DEA, these homebrew concoctions are “synthetic designer drugs that are intended to mimic THC, the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.”
And more importantly, the synthetic cannabis is colorless, orderles, and police dogs can’t smell it.
No one has been caught, arrested, or charged in these smugglings, and the prisoners of course have plausible deniability, because they can’t control who’s sending them mail from the outside. Police may not even know who’s sending it, but they’re not saying, because their investigations are ongoing.
The mail comes as labeled as if it were from an attorney’s office, and mimics the appearance of legal documents about the prisoner’s case. And the sender is often using the name of a real attorney. But many attorneys whose names in the return address do not even work in criminal law, and do not represent incarcerated clients.
“It sounds clever and sneaky,” estate planning attorney Joel Harris, whose name was used in the mailing, told the Chronicle. Harris said he was not even aware of this until the Chronicle contacted him. “You’d think the drug suppliers would use the names of criminal defense attorneys” so the mailings appeared more valid.
The sender in most cases is using a Stamps.com account, which allows total anonymity.
And officials suspect most of these drugged-up mailings are originating from the same account. So whenever these investigations crack who’s doing this, we imagine it will be a very interesting story.
That is, if they ever even catch the guys, who are covering their tracks pretty damn well so far.
Related: Woman Arrested at SFO For Allegedly Trying to Board Flight With 151 Pounds of Marijuana [SFist]
Image: Jesstess87 via Wikimedia Commons
