The Feds Become Drug Dealers by Jay Goodman

I have seen so much madness over the last seventeen years of incarceration that I’m lucky I haven’t lost my mind. I
have just written two chapters about the way the Federal Prison System is run because I wanted to give everyone an
idea about why no one is leaving here rehabilitated. In fact, they are releasing people back into society that in some
cases are worse off than the day they arrived. While I understand the need for prisons, I also believe that most
people could be rehabilitated if they were put in a prison system that was focused on treatment, education and helping
prisoners who have in some cases, if not most, spent their entire lives using drugs.

Like I have said many times, around ninety to ninety five percent of all prisoners are in here because of drugs.
Either they were arrested for having drugs on them, selling drugs, robbing or stealing to get money to buy drugs. So
knowing the biggest issue for prisoners is drugs, wouldn’t it be wise to really focus all of the years they are
incarcerated on drug rehabilitation? While they do have drugs classes in here, these classes are like big car washes
that are trying to push as many people through them as fast as they can. The person running the class does talk about
the effects of each drug which is good, but if a person goes to this class and has had to live under the conditions I
have been writing about, this person’s chances of rehabilitation is not good. In fact, since a lot of prisoners are
faced with constant acts of violence and years of isolation in their cells, a lot of inmates will continue to use
drugs in here as an escape from the reality of their situation. What easier way to escape having to deal with prison
life than to be blown out of their minds, after all this is exactly how must prisoners dealt with life in the free
world. While drug classes are not a bad thing it’s not enough to really help each person, who has had to deal with
long term incarceration.

Now if all this wasn’t bad enough, the Federal Prison System has come up with a new program, it’s called the MAT
program, believe it or not, the Federal Prison System is going to start giving out Suboxone to prisoners, I couldn’t
believe it when I heard people talking about it. Suboxone is like a synthetic heroin, in fact, they use this in the
world to help get people off of heroin. The two biggest drugs in the Federal Prison System since I arrived here is K-2
and Suboxone, all of the people who did heroin or took OxyContin on the street love to do Suboxone in prison. A small
strip of this cost anywhere from a hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred dollars, the prisoners who’ve been
selling it have made a small fortune in here. The prison system has sent countless prisoners to isolation for having
it or testing positive for it during a drug test. I have also seen prisoners get indicted for selling it and get more
time on top of the sentence they are already doing. Now the Federal Bureau of Prisons have decided let’s just give
this to all the prisoners who want it. When I first heard about this, I was surprised, I mean since the beginning of
the prison system they have fought to keep drugs out. Well, I guess that’s not exactly true because it’s the guarded
who keep this place flooded, but the system in general have enforced strict rules when it comes to prisoners. If you
get caught with any drug, you’re taken to isolation and it’s even possible you will be charged. Now they just decide
to give it to everyone that wants it. I have given this a lot of thought as to why, and even though I’m not exactly
sure yet why, I was thinking that maybe the heads of the prison system have seen the money the guards have made
through the years and decided to get involved themselves. I mean the last I have seen there are around five hundred
prisoners who were already signed up to take Suboxone. Now of course the federal government is not doing this for
free, they are probably getting so much per inmate. So, if there are around five hundred prisoners taking suboxone
here, can everyone imagine how many prisoners will be taking it out of the one hundred twenty-two prisons in the
system? I am sure there are tens of thousands already on the program, with the numbers growing bigger by the day. I
have written about the troubles that are caused in prisons by drugs. A lot of fights, stabbings and killings are a
direct result of the drug problems that’s plagued every prison across the United States. There has also been an
epidemic of opioids that has been eating away at our country like a deadly cancer for decades now. So, I don’t
understand why the Federal Prison System would want to give prisoners Suboxone for years, if not decades before they
get out. I know that they say Suboxone is an opioid blocker, meaning once a person takes it, he or she can no longer
get high on heroin and their philosophy is if the people in prison are on Suboxone, then they won’t crave heroin. This
thinking is absolutely crazy, because I have been watching people for years using Suboxone and the affects from it I
just as bad as the people using heroin. The people I have seen on it only use a small amount and are high all day, of
course it makes them feel and act like they’re high on heroin. So just like any addict, their whole day consists of
getting high. Also, another important thing, Suboxone is just as addictive as heroin, I’ve seen the men who use this
shit in here and when it would go dry sometimes, they were just as sick as the people using heroin. They start
shaking, getting sick, they have the runs, in bed all day, one guy even had trouble taking a piss. I asked a guy I
know in here how he felt coming off Suboxone, he said, “I’ve come off heroin and I have come off of Suboxone, Suboxone
was by far the worst.�? So, you take the prisoners off of heroin, but you’ve put them on a synthetic heroin that’s just
as addictive. Call me crazy, but how is one better than the other?

The average prisoner in the Federal Prison System has ten years or more, wouldn’t seem like the Federal Bureau of
Prisons goal be to rehabilitate the prisoners who have drug problems, not put them on something else that has the same
high as the drug they’re addicted to? There are people that have been incarcerated for years or decades at this prison
I’m at some of these guys have been off of drugs for years, because while there are drugs here, not everyone can pay
for them because drugs in here are very expensive. So most have gone without drugs for most of their sentence, but
thanks to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, they will have thousands of prisoners fully addicted while they’re in here
and since these men are high all day, what do you believe they’ll learn? Plus, when these men leave prison they are
not leaving prison rehabilitated, but full-blown addicts. All the prison system did was create lifelong addicts, who
will more than likely spend the rest of their lives inside these prisons and that is exactly what the Federal Prison
System wants, lifelong idiots who will fill their bed.