How to Shoot Heroin in Prison and Get Away With It

If being a junkie on the street is the exception, being a dope fiend in prison is the norm. In the netherworld of corruption and violence if you don’t partake then there’s something wrong with you. You’re considered an outsider. But even though dope is plentiful and cheap on the inside, it definitely doesn’t mean it’s legal. You can’t shoot up like you got a license. Everything has to be done on the low.

From finding a way to get it in, to finding a place to shoot up, to getting a needle, to stashing your dope, to not getting high on your own supply, to never OD’ing, to paying your bill and following the three day rule- there’re rules you have to follow. If you shoot heroin in prison and you want to get away with it then you need to learn the ropes. The Influence talked to four men versed on the subject- two current prisoners and two ex-cons- who immersed themselves in the world of black tar, Binkies and $25 papers inside the belly of the beast to find out how to shoot heroin in prison and get away with it.

Murph is a 50-year-old ex-con from Chicago who served 8 years in the feds for Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine. Judge is a 36-year-old, ex-deadhead from Pittsburgh who’s serving 18 years for Bank Robbery at USP Big Sandy in Kentucky. Bumperhead is a 58-year-old Mexican-American from Las Cruces, New Mexico who served ten years in federal prison for being a Felon in Possession of a Firearm and Rob is a 46-year-old California native who got busted in Arkansas and is serving a life sentence for a Meth Conspiracy. This is their advice on how to shoot heroin in prison and get away with it.

Find a Way to Get it In

Murph– I was locked up in segregation when I received a letter from an old partner in Paris. The note  read, “Be careful, it’s very good.” I about went out of my tits trying to figure out where he hid the heroin. Had to be under the stamp. Sure enough, when I peeled back the stamp there was maybe a tenth of a gram in the center. He’d glued the perimeter. Shit was white as a tee shirt. Maybe 80 percent pure courtesy of the Bekka Valley, Lebanon. I made that last for 4 days. Just snorting match head amounts. Had I been on the compound when it arrived, there’s a good chance me and my guys would’ve been dead before the needle left our arm. It’s easy to get the stuff in through guards, mail and visitation. Dudes concocted ingenious way of getting the dope in. It was pretty much a steady flow. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

Get a Clean Needle that you Can Stash

Judge– The homemade outfits are like needles for dummies- easy too use, easy to hide, and anyone can stick them in their arms.The worst outfit I ever used was a basketball needle melted into to the barrel of a Bic pen and we used a Visine bottle for the binkie. We called it the harpon and man, when you pulled it out blood squirt everywhere. I always kept my own needle and wouldn’t let the other fiends use it. I had no problem paying the 50$ for a clean needle that I could keep and not have to worry about tracking down when I needed my fix. But you always have someone that you fuck with coming and asking to use your rig and you have to let them use it or be considered a scumbag by prison standards.Thankfully in these situations, the ONE thing that i learned in rehab came in handy…how to bleach needles. Three times water, three times bleach, three times water and you can shoot up after a Sureno named termite with his own strand of Hep c that KILLS off the HIV virus! So, I’m still disease free after all these years and it’s one of the things that keeps me clean.

Find a Good Place to Hide your Dope

Rob– When I was an active user it was so plentiful that we didn’t really trip on stashing it. I mean, we would put it on our shoe, or ass if necessary, but more often than not, we left it where we could easily get to it. I always hid it right under the cops nose, being a unit orderly I would hide it near or in the CO office, with the cops being none the wiser. You could also stash dope on the yard, where you work, in the wall, in the mattress or a sealed food package. You can hide it under the fire extinguishers in the unit, in letters or envelopes in your locker, in a bunch of clothes- it’s unreal all the places you can stash it. But I always had it on me if I was in the cell in case I had to swallow it or rush it in the trunk.

Find Someplace to Shoot Up, Chill and Nod Out

Bumperhead– In prison when I escaped with heroin it felt so good and relaxed. It was like sex for me in there. It made me feel so good that I didn’t give a fuck about prison. I was placed in a facilities job. I’d shoot up before work. Go down and kick a nod in the corner till lunch, head back to the block for another taste off the old trusted white spork, then head back down for another 3 hours of drifting off in the corner. It was what dreams are made of in a place where every fucking day is the same day. I’d shoot up in the common shower. Then jump back under a bed sheet in my cell for ten o’clock count, feeling this fantastic warmth in the pit of my stomach. But my favorite place to use was always in the hole at USP Leavenworth. The place was flooded with dope, and I could sit back and get high without being bothered by cops or nosey inmates. Going to the hole was far from a deterrent.

Practice the Three Day Rule

Judge– Not that there’s such a thing as a good dope fiend, but I’d say I was more of a righteous dope fiend. I wouldn’t buy any dope unless I had the money in my pocket. If I didn’t have the money, I wouldn’t buy it. I also went by the 3 day rule. If you go 3 days in a row, you have a habit. I’m not a cut throat motherfucker, I’ve been there and done that. I was just a righteous dope fiend and always paid for my drugs. Even if I was copping grams of the most vicious tar this side of the Mexican border and staying up all night cutting up little squares out of potato chip bags (for their surface) and making over 100 folds of 25$ dollar papers to go sling to the prison junkies that would keep me high for free I followed my three day rule.

Don’t Get Dope on Credit

Rob– When you’re slinging dope in prison you have to give credit. There’s just no way around it, you can either get caught holding a rack of dope, sweating your days out worrying about when the cops are going to run up on you and your busted, or give it out and try to collect. You’d think that people would know that they’re going to see you, you are after all in prison, but, they’ll just hide in their units and not go to chow. They’ll run out the remainder of their days on the island worrying every time the doors are open if 3 crazy motherfuckers are going to run up on him and fill him with enough lead to die of just the poisoning, let alone the holes from all the stab wounds that have now taken the place off all your major vital organs.

When you Shoot up Make Sure Someone has your Back

Bumperhead– Once in USP Atlanta I bought a 50 dollar paper of China White which turned out to be fentanyl. My cellie picked me up from the floor and kept me awake and walking me till it wore off. I saw a few on many yards that they usually found in the morning from slamming coke and heroin. One time a dude from La Eme gave me the plastic the dope was wrapped in. Tar was all over it. It was a gift and I just threw all of it in a bit of hot water. Next thing I know I wake up with ice on my nuts and my homey slapping the piss outta me, dragging me to the shower. He saved my life man.

Pay Your Debts on Time

Murph– It doesn’t matter how much money you have on the street, it’ll dry up. I’ve seen kids come into a prison with a good family that would send them the moon, and after a few months of money flying everywhere, they were long gone, and the debauched fiend was left with a monster bill and no way to pay it off with a bunch of killers who were dying to stab something! Shit gets really real really quick when the tax collector comes to collect on a late payment. Selling dope in prison is a ruthless job. The stories on why a junkie can’t pay their bill runs from, “Dude, I’m fucked up right now and I can’t get the money.” To, “My mom’s dog ate your ID number and she couldn’t send it and now she’s on a cruise for two weeks.” A dealer can’t let someone test him and not do anything about it. If he does all the money that’s owed to him on the yard will vanish.