The first time I went to jail, I was using heroin as well as methadone. I had a doctor who prescribed me methadone and oxycodone for my long-term pain, after a teenage car accident that cost me my leg. I would sell the oxy and buy heroin, and use that and the methadone to keep from being sick.
I got arrested for possession and was kept in a holding cell for one night. This wasn’t my first offense, but other times I’d been let off with probation or did programs to stay out of jail. This time, they didn’t let it slide. I ended up taking a plea for 45 days.
I was pretty anxious. I’d heard stories of jail, about how there’s no privacy and you get humbled real quick. But I had a valid methadone prescription from a doctor. I would be ok, right?
Wrong. At the jail intake I saw the officer, and then a nurse. She took my vitals and asked some questions about the medications I was on. I listed them. She told me they would have to get delivery of the medications, so I might not get them until the following day. That’s all that was said.
The next day, I had that horrible feeling of being dopesick. I was counting down the seconds to the med call. I didn’t have much else to do, as I’d been alone in that cell for 23 out of the last 24 hours.
The nurse said this was the jail’s “opioid protocol”—ibuprofen and Bentyl, then at night they would add trazodone to help me sleep.
Finally, I heard med call announced and they opened my cell. I went to see the nurse on duty. She had three meds for me: my antidepressant, ibuprofen and something I wasn’t sure what it was. I asked, and she said Bentyl. Much later, I learned it’s a gut antispasmodic, sometimes used to treat irritable bowel syndrome.
I told the nurse I didn’t take that, but that I was missing my prescribed methadone. She replied that this was the jail’s “opioid protocol”—ibuprofen and Bentyl, then at night they would add trazodone to help me sleep.
I thought the stripping down, squatting and coughing while grabbing my cheeks that I had to undergo during intake was humbling enough. But it turned out to have nothing on the reality that I would be in a cell by myself 23 hours a day, while getting checked on every 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t kill myself, presumably because the withdrawal was so bad.
By the next day, I was utterly miserable. I still naively thought that maybe if I could just see the doctor, I could get this fixed. Nope. They didn’t give opioids in this jail, regardless of medical need. So I was going to suffer far beyond what the court had determined as my punishment.
As the days crawled by, I went through hell. I told myself I needed to stop using, because I couldn’t do this ever again.
As soon as I got out, everything I’d said to myself went out the window. I needed to get high. A little while later, I overdosed.
Ironically, the fact that the jail was overcrowded cut the misery short. Because they’d run out of space, they released me early, after two weeks.
As soon as I got out, everything I’d said to myself went out the window. I needed to get high. A little while later, I overdosed—becoming another statistic showing people’s vulnerability after enforced abstinence, lost tolerance and release.
After surviving that, I made a change. I wasn’t going to use heroin anymore, just methadone. I maintained that for seven months. But due to other medical issues I wasn’t working, so I was in dire need of money. And there was only one other way I knew how to get it, which was to sell drugs. Shocker! I got caught and went back to jail.
This time, I lucked out and was offered a diversion program called Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition. Because of that, I was only in jail for a week. But coming out, I needed a heroin fix faster than I could drive the two miles to pick it up.
I soon got arrested again and was given six months. But I wasn’t as miserable as before, because this time I planned ahead.
On my previous trips to jail, I’d seen how they searched my prosthetic leg, and what they missed. So I took a baggie full of methadone pills, and stuffed it inside the pole connecting the socket to the foot. They didn’t find it.
I was still scared that the corrections officers would see I wasn’t going through withdrawal as bad as before. But the threat of getting more time added for bringing in contraband didn’t stop me. I refused to go through the county-sponsored torture again. Withdrawal in jail feels so much worse then when you’re outside.
Even today, as the overdose crisis continues, you have no chance of getting methadone in most US jails.
All these times I went to jail, I was sometimes able to see a doctor. And I still can’t comprehend how watching so many people being tortured because they didn’t have their methadone could be compatible with doctors’ ethical imperative to “do no harm.”
Methadone is a prescribed medication and a lifesaver. It cuts mortality for people with opioid use disorder by half or more. It should be accessible everywhere, but in the United States it has never worked that way. Even today, as the overdose crisis continues, you have no chance of getting methadone in most US jails.
In the years since my stints in jail, I’ve been able to move past that life. But there are so many others, right now, still going through the stress and suffering of being denied their medication when they’re locked up. Still coming out, with lowered tolerance and wanting to forget what they’ve just gone through. Still vulnerable to whatever fate the drug supply deals them.
Photograph via Picryl
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