Dani Harris reflects on drug addiction, overdose, parole, and the consequences when substance use affects everyone living around it.
There seem to be some prisoners who never learn. I saw two old farts go sit under the stairs to get high yesterday. They were soon rolling over and playing dead. They both threw up. One shit his pants. Hard to believe it only cost them their chicken and cake from their lunch trays to have so much fun. Silly me. I ate mine and missed it.
Drug Addiction in Prison
At least racism is gone from prison. One was a Hispanic and one was white. Both turned purple in the face after they came together in racial solidarity to smoke the slivers of paper they were given that had been laced with some chemical combination intended to mimic synthetic marijuana to get high and escape prison for a while. They almost escaped forever. The Hispanic gentleman had made parole and was waiting for the chance to be truly free. He almost was.
These two idiots have been smoking together for days now. I’ve had to stop them from firing up while officers are counting. If you intend to be incoherent for an hour or more, you’re going to be incapable of getting to your cell door to be counted and probably won’t know where your cell is anyway. Why would you smoke, knowing they’re counting or doing an in-and-out? You need to put that on stupid criminals. The Hispanic got mad at me for stopping him recently. Bet he wishes he had listened to me now.
I also told him, not even knowing he had made parole, how I feel seeing these fools granted parole keep smoking and snorting and acting the damn fool, never realizing they are squandering a gift from God. I’ve spent over 34 years in prison, many of those as a drug addict, and never made parole. Now, with eight months left on a 35-year sentence, I don’t touch any drugs. I hope to be out soon and refuse to leave with an addiction. I’m old and tired and want to spend my last few years free. I won’t make it on drugs.
The Consequences of Drug Addiction
Today I’m locked in my cell for a 24-hour lockdown. The sober guys tried to save us. Racism raised its ugly head as other Hispanics took control of their own and whites did the same with theirs. Slaps were administered, cold water poured on heads and faces, they were turned on their sides so they wouldn’t inhale vomit and drown in it.
The drug addicts can’t see why people hate on them. They’re just doing their time. Don’t they have that right? I would normally agree with that. I’m a big believer in prisoners doing as they please, but toon head idiots have to have babysitters, depend on others. They make everyone else try to cover up what they do.
It’s common for other prisoners to talk guards into letting them put smokers in their cells. Yesterday, that wasn’t an option. Arrangements were made. They propped the Hispanic up beside his cell, posed him to look like he was sleeping. They had to put the white guy by another white guy’s door who lived on one row, because he was too far gone to get him to his cell on two row.
They never consider that if they had died, everyone who touched the body might end up charged with murder. They could all get disciplinary cases anyway. We have little choice. We don’t want to be stuck in our cells for other people’s bullshit, so we cover it up.
Twice recently, I heard a smoker say, “Why do I have to go in the cell?” The answer was easy: Because if you don’t, we’ll beat you up.
Drug Addiction Isn’t Worth the Price
The two who left yesterday won’t be coming back any time soon, so don’t have to worry about that, but they’ll surely go to G-4, medium custody, where any time you need babysitting, the price is a beating. It’s a harder world.
Maybe I’m being harsh, but they should have just died and saved us ever having to see them again. Their families would be better off without them anyway, if they refuse to give up their addictions, and more prison sentences are soon to follow.
Drug addiction isn’t worth the price. You don’t just ruin your own life, but everyone else’s as well.
