When Paper is Worth More Than Gold: The Dark Economy of Prison Drugs

Synthetic marijuana has created a perfect storm of danger, addiction, and economic exploitation behind prison walls. In this compelling exploration, host Remie Jones draws from personal experience and a PJP article to reveal how this deceptively named substance is transforming correctional facilities across America.

The economics are staggering—a single sheet of paper sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids can fetch up to $3,000 in prison. This creates powerful incentives for smuggling operations that often compromise the integrity of prison staff and vendors who find the financial temptation overwhelming.

Unlike natural cannabis, synthetic marijuana (known variously as K2, Spice, or Deuce) produces effects more akin to psychedelics, leading to disturbing hallucinations and erratic behavior. Remie shares haunting firsthand accounts highlighting both the drug's potency and the desperation for escape that permeates prison environments.

The episode traces the unlikely origins of these compounds to legitimate scientific research repurposed by manufacturers seeking recreational drugs. Within prison walls, consumption has evolved into ritualistic practices leaving distinctive burn patterns that resemble flame trails across cell walls.

Beyond exposing the mechanics of this crisis, Remie challenges listeners to consider deeper questions about addiction, mental health, and the conditions of confinement that drive people to seek chemical escape regardless of consequences. The synthetic marijuana epidemic reveals fundamental failures in how we approach rehabilitation and underscores the urgent need for meaningful prison reform.

Join the conversation about prison reform by following Lockdown the Legacy on social media and sharing this episode to help amplify voices from behind bars.

Source:

https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2025/03/20/what-synthetic-marijuana-has-done-to-my-prison/

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Introduction & Topic Preview
• 3:40 K2 Basics: Synthetic Marijuana Explained
• 6:08 The Economics of Prison Drug Trade
• 11:29 Violence and Social Impact
• 15:25 Dangerous Hallucinations and Health Risks
• 23:17 The Origins of Synthetic Cannabinoids
• 28:43 Consumption Methods and Prison Environment
• 33:53 Final Thoughts on Prison Reform

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:04

What's up Legacy Crew. Welcome back to another episode of Lockdown on Legacy. Of course, I'm your host, remy Jones, and today guess what you got me all to yourselves I'm solo. Dj really wanted to be on this episode but unfortunately she fell under the weather, so she's going to sit this one out. But don't worry, you're in good hands. Alright, this week we're going to pick up where we left off.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Last week, you know, we talked about prison censorship and we kind of alluded to the fact that we had another article lined up which, in fact, was about drug use inside of prisons. This article is called my Prison Is Going Up In Smoke With Synthetic Marijuana and it is by Jeremy K Phillips, written on March 20th 2025. So this article is actually about something that I have spoke on before on the podcast and some of our early season one episodes, and that is about. It kind of aligns with a few different episodes actually. So we talk about hustles. We kind of talked about some of the stuff you can get in prison contraband-wise. So those are actually two different episodes. You can go ahead and check those out if you want to dig deep, but at the time of rightness, Jeremy was in the East Hall of Arkansas Department of Corrections, cummings Unit, and he describes how it was so rowdy and he just saw it spiral downward because of the introduction of synthetic marijuana.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Now, this synthetic marijuana has a lot of different nicknames, street names or whatever. Some of them you know. One of the most common ones is spice. Some other people call it deuce or what do we call this? K2 is what we call it here in Ohio, and this stuff is crazy, man. I don't even know why they call it synthetic marijuana because, honestly, the effects of it are nothing like smoking weed I had to more closely with a psychedelic like mushrooms or maybe even acid, especially when you consider the way it's conveyed into a prison. I would definitely associate it more with acid.

Speaker 1: 3:18

It is fully synthetic, like there's nothing natural about this, and it is commonly found in many different forms, most often especially Jeremy, he talks about it in this article it was usually smuggled into the prison on paper, which is really hard to detect. And another way it's hard to detect is it does not show up on most common drug urinalysis exams, so it's easy to get away with it. It's pretty much the drug of choice for inmates. Now, this article, man, it kind of brought back some memories for real, because this dude brought up some stuff that I kind of forgot about and I don't know if it was because I just suppressed the memories or if I just didn't really think about it too much. But the prevalence of this stuff in prison, I mean it kind of ebbs and flows, it rises and falls for real, and when it's bad, you know, like everybody in the prison I don't care if it's in your unit or not Like you know, when shit's bad and the staff just gets so just aggravated and frustrated with trying to track it down, but I mean stuff moves, like you hear stuff and your whole stash is moved before they can get to you and it's really like playing whack-a-mole in a way you know.

Speaker 1: 4:57

So while we dive into this, first I want to talk about the hustle part of Deuce, which I mentioned before in one of our early episodes. The reason why, or at least one reason why, it's so prevalent is because of the economical value of it. I mentioned that it's often smuggled in on sheets of paper, so it takes a kind of an organization, you know, to get this off. Usually an inmate has someone on the outside who has to go through the process of getting some type of synthetic liquefied cannabinoid and they spray it onto this paper, you know. And then they let it dry and you know, now it's time to transport. You can transport, I mean, a hundred sheets of this stuff in one go if you've got the right courier.

Speaker 1: 5:52

And unfortunately that calls in to question the integrity of vendors that go inside the prison, of staff members that go inside the prison, whether they be on the administrative side, on the clerical side, or even on the security side, officers and such. But I mean it's paper, right? I mean I don't care if it's blank paper, I don't care if it's printed on paper, it's paper and it's real, unassuming. So when we talk about the economical value and how that could draw into question someone's ethics and why, you know most people like why are they willing to take this risk? Like it's not worth it? But the value of a single sheet of paper, like a full what is it? Eight and a half by 11 or something like sheet of printer paper could be up to $3,000 for one sheet of paper. So most often, you know people aren't selling full sheets, they're cutting them up into tiny strips. You know they're like an inch long or something like that, and you know they're getting a man like that. You can fold it up, put it in a gum wrapper if you wanted to. However, you get it in.

Speaker 1: 7:05

When you approach somebody as an inmate and you're like, hey man, my people are here, I need you to bring this in. They're going to give it to you in a parking lot, whatever, or they're going to meet you at Walmart or whatever. And you really think like you stand behind that oath that you took, or you know your ethics or whatever it is, and you're like no, and they're like man, come on, bro, I'll give you $1,000 per trip. And you're like, what the fuck? $1,000? How can you afford to give me $1,000 per trip? And if you're not really educated on the economics of it and you start doing the math like man, I can probably bring this in like three times in a week Like, yeah, I'll give you $1,000 per trip, all right. Well, maybe I'm willing to bend some rules a little bit, and I'm sure the first time you're a little skeptical, you know. But as soon as you get that first payment, all of a sudden it's the staff side that's probably pushing like, hey man, come on, let's do this again. You know it's not even the inmate driving the show anymore. The staff probably like I need that, come on. And the sheer like, fucking like. This is crazy to be.

Speaker 1: 8:22

To imagine yourself in a setting, you know, like you're inside a prison cell, most people think like in prison you ain't got shit right, you're at the lowest point of your life, but thirst for survival, man, that's what it is. So imagine being inside this prison cell and you're exchanging a sheet of paper to somebody and you're saying hey, man, have your family send that money to my family, you know, and you basically you wait until you get the confirmation. Man, have your family send that money to my family and you basically you wait until you get the confirmation. Nowadays it's even faster because we just talked about it, you got electronic communications. Now you can get an email message or something within minutes, most times just confirming like hey, man, your friend dropped that off, great. So now boom, you exchange this piece of paper or you know little strips of paper or whatever, and you're about your business. It doesn't look suspicious at all. Like nobody can say like, oh man, I just seen them exchange drugs. You like, you know, hey, I drew this picture for you and just have a piece of paper lined up behind it. Here you go. You could do it in front of a CEO and nobody would be the wiser. So it's really hard to track down, it's really hard to put it into and then you really most times don't even know that it's in there until the symptoms of it start.

Speaker 1: 9:45

So Jeremy talked about, and mostly stressed about, the effects that it had on his housing unit and on the safety of people in the housing unit. Some of the symptoms that he discussed was you kind of knew what was going on, because all of a sudden prison time was a lot more dangerous. All of a sudden prison time was a lot more dangerous, like for absolutely what seemed like absolutely no reason. All of a sudden there was a heightened sense of violence and criminal activity, extortion, theft, just downright, you know, violent altercations and everything. And it was all basically off of how can I get more of this? You know, uh, people had to feed their addiction and so basically, like I can remember, you know from my own personal experience, when stuff got stolen so much that it kind of just became community property, like and this is when I'm I was in Toledo correctional and they had just recently doubled the population, which Toledo was built to be a super max prison, a single man sales, but you know it's all about money. So they doubled the prison population and because there wasn't enough amenities and because now all of a sudden you got twice as much drug activity or this and that people just did stuff out of boredom, all types of stuff.

Speaker 1: 11:19

But it's really hard when you got stuff and you're not a fighter, because somebody goes steal your stuff before you can drum up the courage to go get it back. Someone's already stole it from them and that was. That was a hard time, man. That was probably when I did most of my fighting in prison and that's probably when I also had a lot of people that I refused to hang out with. Like I made one dude leave his cell. He was in the cell next to me. I made him we called it check in. I made him go up to the CEO and tell him, like you know, I want to go to the hall, and the reason why I did it is because he kept letting people steal his stuff and he wouldn't stand up to him. So I felt like he drew too much of the wrong type of attention to my area, but anyway, that's a digression.

Speaker 1: 12:18

So Jeremy talks in an article about the rise in violence and criminal activity, extortion, theft and fighting, and it was all to feed that addiction and that is something I can totally relate to. But that's also something that I can honestly say. Drug use is not something that the institution really cares about until the side effects of drug use start to spill over into their domain. You know when all of a sudden you have to explain why there's a rise in fights and thefts and reports of extortion and all this stuff, that's when it's like all right, we got to crack down. When you just see inmates high and whatever, they don't care about that, they don't care about that. Now, when it comes to the other side of that, we all know the economic side, which we explained. We know the safety side of it and you know that's cool.

Speaker 1: 13:22

If you're just a person trying to do your time, I'm telling you it's the most annoying thing ever to be in the middle of this because there's nowhere you can go. You know there's no relief really. But on the other side, the health risks, you know the unpredictable effects, this stuff, like I said, it's not like weed, where you know you get a little lightheaded, you know you kind of get that little happy buzz feeling and you might get a little hungry. No, it's not really like that and I really don't understand why they call it synthetic marijuana, because it's nothing like that. I've personally seen a whole slew of side effects from this stuff. Slew of side effects from this stuff, like I actually had a friend. I ain't going to name them names because you know some of my dudes still locked up and you know names are pretty specific.

Speaker 1: 14:18

But I seen one guy we were watching a movie in the chapel of all places and it was a scene in the movie where this dude was fighting a dragon and he had a samurai sword or something and the dragon spews fire at him and he slices the fire in half with the sword. Pretty cool scene. But my dude lost it. He was high off this K2 deuce synthetic marijuana and it makes you hallucinate and so he, real life, flipped out of his chair and started rolling on the ground and like running around the room and shit. And I mean you know it's at least one CO in there, you got the chaplain in there, you got about 40 inmates in there and the lights is low and this dude starts freaking out and everybody's trying to figure out what the hell's going on. And later I talked to him Of course this was months later because you know he ended up going to the hole and medical and all this other stuff but he told me that basically he thought that the fire from the dragon was on him. So he just freaked out and started rolling around the ground and everything because he thought he was on fire. And I at first I thought he was joking, but of course, like I've seen this with my own eyes and I'm like what the fuck dude like, why would you keep doing this? And of course, like I've seen this with my own eyes and I'm like what the fuck dude Like, why would you keep doing this? And of course he did it again because that's the nature of the beast.

Speaker 1: 15:56

Another instance I was walking back from a visit and I saw this guy who was just laying in the grass, looked like he was swimming. Laying in the grass, looked like he was swimming and it was at that time it was so prevalent that other inmates had not even paid attention to him, like they walked right by him because they already knew what it was and, you know, a CO hadn't done the rounds yet. So, basically, dude was just swimming in the grass and nobody paid him attention. And I think the only other instance of like really tripping out that I seen, um, I had came into a different block. Uh, I don't know if I was like trying to get a friend or something out of there, but I had walked into this block and I'm talking to the CEO at the desk and all of a sudden this dude comes running. He's on the top range and he's screaming like somebody's chasing him and he jumps off the top range and like crashes down below onto this table where dudes are playing dominoes and the sheer, like like shock on everybody's face, like what the hell just happened. This dude I mean we're talking about like 30 feet up, you know, from the top range to the bottom, and this dude just ran full speed and jumped off like he did not know that that was a fall and I'm like man, I couldn't understand, I couldn't wrap my head around it. But, like I said, if you're in there and you see the deterioration of the virus around you, it makes you uneasy.

Speaker 1: 17:45

And these drugs have been around from roughly around 2008,. But that is only when they were discovered to be used as synthetic marijuana or other synthetic drugs like cocaine and everything Cocaine and everything which you guys might know as bath salts that were being snorted as cocaine and had everybody turn how this guy named John Huffman, who was a retired organic chemistry professor from Clemson University, played a major role in creating these compounds, these chemical compounds that go into the synthetic weed and cocaine and whatever. And basically he talks about how, in the early 1990s, he was a biochemist and they had discovered a part of the body called the cannabinoid receptor, and they said that basically, in addition to getting pot smokers high, this receptor seemed to be involved with all sorts of important things like sleep, appetite, pain and some other things, which was a whole new horizon for potential medicines. That's a quote from the NPRorg article. Now, that's a quote from the NPRorg article. But basically, before they could figure out how it worked, they had to figure out how it triggered, what things affected it and how. And so Huffman was one of the scientists that was tasked with figuring it out and he thought, man, this is going to be a fun little puzzle we're going to do. And so they synthesized over 300 new compounds and they published it all of their findings and formulas in a scientific journal and they said for about 10 years, that was it. Nothing ever came of it.

Speaker 1: 20:03

But then, around the end of 2008, huffman received a message from a blogger from Germany and they're saying hey, man, your chemical compounds have been discovered in a drug called Spice. And he was like what the fuck are you talking about? Well, spice was actually the official name. It was the brand name of a product being sold as an herbal incense and, of course, it was labeled, not for human consumption, but I mean what is labeled for human consumption in the drug world, right? I mean other than the big pill pushers. But it was like this was being sold in corner stores, in these one-off hot topics and odds and ends stores or whatever where you can get your vapes and everything. And it was just right there, right next to the register, labeled incense and, of course, kids. It was like, ah, let's smoke this. And then it blew their top off and it was like, oh shit, and it spread like wildfire. So the actual chemical name was JWH-018. And Huffman says it was the 18th compound that they had synthesized and it was really potent, but they never thought anything about it.

Speaker 1: 21:30

But the problem came, according to this article, that of course some very money-minded people took the exact recipe from his research that was published and they started mass producing in China and they started boom, shooting it all around the world. And so all of a sudden, this very which I mean that's the case with most things is this very innocent thing or this you know very ambitious person developed something for productive use, you know, responsible use in research, and it was abused and developed verbatim. I mean whatever. It was a Zach replica of his research and it was developed. It was like, hey, we're going to use this for something else because it feels good. So last thing I mentioned about this NPR article. You know I'll put it in the show notes, but basically and Huffman says that he still to this day gets emails and other forms of communications from people who are claiming that this drug has ruined their lives or their kids' lives or someone else that they know, and they blame it all on him.

Speaker 1: 22:53

And I mean that's kind of unfortunate, because he did not intend that, he did not develop it for that purpose, he did not distribute it or anything else, but some other people did and it was his research. But I find that very unfair, man. You know, going off on one of my side notes again, I find that so unfair because everything that, nearly everything that is negative in this world, was developed for some type of responsible use. I mean we have diseases out here that are the byproduct of some scientist research getting loose. We the opioid crisis. You know it's from some responsible use drugs that end up getting people hooked. I mean we had SARS and H1N1.

Speaker 1: 23:52

And what's the one where, like, people were putting it in the mail and stuff? Yeah, I mean hell, cocaine, all of it. It all started as something good and got out of hand. So I can't put that on him, man, and I won't, I'm not going to do that. But when we get back to the street level and prison level, consumption of it, it's sad, man, and you know it's much bigger than that. You know it's much bigger than the localized focus of it. But to see the effects, to see the effects it has on people in society is bad enough, but to see the effects of it in prison in such a controlled environment, it's like basically seeing, you know, some widespread virus in a petri dish and watching it just totally take over. It's horrible, jeremy.

Speaker 1: 24:57

In his article he talks about how he ended up seeing somebody get stabbed right in front of him over a sack of commissary items so that somebody could trade it for more of this deuce you know K2, spice, whatever drug and on another occasion he says he saw a man beaten with a lock and a sock over a few sticks worth of the drug Now sticks. He explains what the denominations of this deuce is. So he says that small sections are called dots and that's about a quarter inch square and they go for about one to three dollars. And then you have slugs which are about a half inch to one inch squares and they go for five to ten dollars. And then you have slugs which are about a half inch to one inch squares and they go for $5 to $10. And then you have what's called an ID and it is about the size of a driver's license and it costs between $50 and $100. And then sometimes you can get a whole sheet of paper sold as is, which is eight and a half by 11, and it can sell anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000, which is freaking, mind-blowing man that is. That's wicked.

Speaker 1: 26:10

So to be honest, I never, really I never really seen the actual consumption of this drug. You know, I always assumed that it was just rolled up and smoked just like weed. You know, in prison I've often seen that guys use the Bible paper, like the little tiny books that are given out for free of, like Psalms or Proverbs or something. They use those as like rolling papers. But Jeremy describes a different method which I've never really heard of.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Actually, just real quick, the episode art for the last episode was inspired by his description of how the drug is consumed, so the billowing smoke coming out of the cell doors and everything that was inspired by his description. So he describes that wicks are made out of a length of tightly twisted toilet paper to form a thin rope and then one end is lit and the flame blown out to allow the chair to slowly burn. This is verbatim reading from the article. Deuce users use the wicks to light sticks similar to a marijuana joint but filled with the cut up slivers of the deuce paper Rolled out of thin Bible paper. Oh look, how about that? The wicks themselves are typically hung on the back walls of the open barracks.

Speaker 1: 27:42

And then he says that you can see the black ash collected in heaps on the floor from all of the wicks, burning that back there, and how nauseating the smoke is and how thick it hangs in the air. Um, he says, over the past few years the WIC's brown burn trails have started to overlap as they spread across the wall, and the back wall of every barrack in East Hall now looks like actual flames have licked the wall. That is a very potent description that he painted there, a very vivid description that he painted there. A very vivid description that he painted there. And very sad, man. It's sad because, I mean, I've dabbled in drugs, man, I will never sit there and act like I haven't. I've done quite a few. I wouldn't say quite a few, I've done a few, quite a few, I wouldn't say quite a few, I've done a few. But to now be, you know, a sober, living person with sound mind and walking I mean through his description, walking in a place like that and just to see all the telltale signs, man, it's like wow, it's a lot, man, it's a lot.

Speaker 1: 29:01

And I can only imagine the frustration of the other inmates and the staff members and pretty much just like what you going to do. You know what can you do? Besides, I mean some of the more taboo things, like, if you're an inmate, what you going to do? You going to snitch? To be honest, man, would it even help? I mean, when it's that prevalent like he talks about multiple people in this one unit being dealers Would it even help? I mean, it's probably more dangerous than it is beneficial.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Now, I know we talked about how frustrating it can be, especially if you're another inmate that doesn't mess around with this stuff, or if you're a staff member and you're trying to figure out a way to crack down on it. The reality is, man, as far as I know, as far as I feel, there's really nothing to be done about it, you know, except for, you know, educating inmates on the dangers of it. Really, because it does have significant health risks. You know it's not natural weed. I mean, hell, really, be honest, today's weed ain't even natural weed. But this stuff is so chemically laden that I mean the short term has, you know, pretty dire consequences to your health. So I mean, maybe education could stem the tide of it, but really, I mean it's really hard to crack down on it because it's really hard to catch it getting smuggled in.

Speaker 1: 30:32

You know, like we said, anybody can pretty much convey it into the prison, whether that be a visitor or most. You know, most often staff members or vendors who are tempted by the quick money Because, you know, everybody got money problems. But even more creative than that, you know there's. I've personally seen some pretty advanced ways of you know conveyance. I've seen people stuff it in softballs and throw it over the fence. You know I've seen drones dropping stuff on the prison yard. You know it's just it's really hard to watch every. You know to fight a war on every front and be a master on every front. You know so, naturally, stuff is going to get by.

Speaker 1: 31:28

So I mean, what we heard today is more than just a story about synthetic drugs, you know, or even at face value, about addiction or hustle. I mean it's a story about survival and the systems and you know, like everything, the mechanics from each different side. I mean this deuce or spice, whatever you want to call it. I mean it isn't just causing chaos in prison yards, like it's revealing the deeper chaos and how we address addiction, mental health and rehabilitation behind bars. I mean, to be honest, we can't talk about reform without talking about the conditions people are trying to survive. I mean the conditions that create demand for anything that offers escape, even if it costs someone their sanity, their safety, or even more time because you can catch, or even more time because you can catch. You can be prosecuted for this stuff, you know, and it could result in them lengthening your sentence. So, as we continue to, you know, advocate for people on the inside, to amplify voices from the inside, I mean I challenge you guys out here to, I mean, really take a look at what are we all doing to support healing, to support reentry and to support restoration of rights, to help people with their come to terms with that truth. I mean, us here at Lockdown the Legacy, we'll just keep repeating ourselves, you know, like until people catch on, we'll just keep shining the light on it, but I mean, eventually we got to figure out a way to break this cycle. So, with that man, I'm going to end with that.

Speaker 1: 33:19

Um, I'm going to take a chance to ask you all to check us out on social media. You know, facebook, lockdown the Legacy podcast, uh, instagram, lockdown the Legacy check me out. I'll be posting little short videos and stuff there. You know, please like, subscribe, follow. You know it helps a lot and I mean I appreciate you guys who tune in and listen.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I watch the stats and see, like all the different cities and countries that people tune in from, and I mean that really take a lot of pride in that and that means a lot to me. So thank you for that and if any of these episodes resonate with you, if you find them interesting, you know, please share it. You know, don't just like it, but share it because we are trying to grow. So start a conversation, drop that in there. Hey, you guys should go check out this Lockdown Legacy podcast. You know, plug us in turn our lights on Um. But most importantly, you know, stay tuned like, stay stay up on you know what we got to offer, because really all we're doing is trying to give voices to the people who are silenced. You know, and with that I'm gonna let it go, peace.