Prison connoisseurs are always amused by the amazement of the visitor who sees the halo of blue smoke in the corridors of certain prisons and smells the smell of weed wafting into one’s throat. Drugs are a companion to imprisonment. Its use distorts the passage of time and helps overcome the difficulties of confinement, promiscuity and boredom. It “moves freely,” according to both inmates and guards.

Because the use of drugs in prisons, especially cannabis, is a massive fact: According to unpublished figures from the Ministry of Justice, 18,187 narcotics were seized in prisons in 2022 The world receive; 95% were worried about “shit” or “weed”, THE The rest consisted of other substances such as cocaine, crack or heroin.

Inmates get them by projection – specifically: accomplices come to the edge of the prison and throw the packages over the walls – by means of drone deliveries, but also in visiting rooms, especially since the end of mandatory strip searches in 2009. In rarer cases, they get them Prisoners receive their care with the help of guards or outside workers, who then pay for their doses at prices sometimes twice as high as those outside.

One of the suppliers in Neuvic prison (Dordogne), nicknamed “Coffee Shop” by other inmates because of his large cannabis stock, was sentenced to two years in prison by the Périgueux court in the summer of 2022. His partner, also convicted, had a habit of hiding the drugs in her bra before handing them under the table at visiting rooms. The cafe, which placed orders via the social network Snapchat, stored the loot in its cell (where 150 grams of cannabis was discovered during a search) and then resold it to its captive customers.

80% of prisoners smoke tobacco

The Besançon detention center was recently the scene of a more dramatic affair. On December 29, 2023, two inmates, ages 34 and 36, were found dead in their cell. Medical reports indicate an overdose, probably related to the ingestion of a heroin-drug cocktail. An unprecedented situation, according to the prison administration, which records only a handful of overdose deaths each year. On January 25, another Besançon inmate and his partner were charged with supplying the drug that led to the deaths.

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