By John Caniglia
The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A simple greeting card mailed to an inmate contained more than words from a well-wisher: it had 20 strips of Suboxone, a drug used to satisfy the brain’s hunger for opiates and limit the harsh withdrawal crash that addicts suffer when they stop using.
In Ohio prisons, the underground demand for the drug has spiked in recent years.
As heroin and opiates flood Ohio, smuggling Suboxone into prisons has become an unexpected byproduct as it has become the latest form of contraband for the state prison system, according to records from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
But Ohio is hardly alone. The Associated Press has reported that states from Maine to New Mexico have seen a jump in the discoveries of illegal doses of Suboxone at prisons, some of the strips smuggled in through kisses in visiting areas.
Full story: Suboxone, an addiction treatment drug, seeps into Ohio prisons as contraband