Heroin use traditionally brings more harm to both the individual and society at large than cannabis use. Increased consumption of hard drugs inside institutions has the potential to bring significant harm to our communities as well as negatively affecting the individual involved in its use. Heroin addiction is designated in the DSM-IV.⁶ Addiction is a group of cognitive, behavioral, and physiological symptoms indicating that the individual continues use despite significant substance related problems (Woody 1997). Woody indicates that most heroin users experience problems in one of these areas: involvement in drug related crime such as shoplifting or burglary, overdose, skin infections, hepatitis, HIV infection, nasal and pulmonary irritation, family, psychiatric difficulty and employment. “It has been unequivocally established that narcotic addiction in the United States is associated with exceptionally high crime rates. With few exceptions, narcotic addicts engage in a great amount of criminal activity, frequently on a daily basis, and as a consequence commit hundreds and, at times, thousands of offenses per individual during their addiction careers” (Nurco 1997:47). Heroin’s link to crime has been well documented. Nurco’s article relates many studies examining heroin relationship to criminal activity, while the Senate Committee found no correlation between cannabis use and criminality with the exception of trafficking, heroin clearly is linked to crimes of acquisition, as well as subjecting an individual to a community fraught with systemic violence issues (Goldstein 1985). The heaviest heroin users are more likely to be serious offenders. Nurco’s report found that ‘expensive’ drug use was a partial explanation for “income generating crime.” These studies found that more-than-once-a-day heroin use predicted comparatively with high levels of illegal activity (Nurco 1997).

The most significant risk to both individual drug users and society at large is the exposure of heroin addicts to dangerous practices that increase the possibility of contracting a life altering disease, such as HIV and Hepatitis C. “Intravenous injection offers important economic advantages as a route of drug administration: it produces a very strong immediate drug effect, and almost all the drug is used” (Des Jarlais 1997:63). Des Jarlais states “transmission of HIV among drug injectors is now the engine driving the continuing AIDS epidemic in this country. If we do not control the transmission of HIV among injecting drug users, we will not be able to control the AIDS epidemic as a whole” (Des Jarlais 1997:65). Mills (2002) points out that the lifetime social costs of one intravenous drug user with AIDS can be as high as $606,209 (costs of health care and lost productivity).

It is important to note that there can be many reasons that prompt people to switch their drug of choice from soft drugs to hard drugs. For example, the compact size and high potency of heroin allows for easier importation of the narcotic inside the institution. CSC (1998) reports that of 350 prisoners surveyed at Joyceville Institution, 21 had tried heroin for the first time in prison. Prisoners are often described as “using what substances are available”, and because of easier importation and higher profit margins, harder drugs may be more available and/or “marketed” harder in some institutional drug markets than soft drugs like cannabis. In addition, offenders may be making the switch to hard drug use very early in their sentences prior to their first random urinalysis test, making it difficult to document a shift from softer to harder drugs. Although there are a variety of reasons why prisoners may turn to hard drug use while in prison, this article’s focus is on the effects that urinalysis may have on that choice. It is imperative CSC conducts an empirical analysis specifically designed to identify if offenders are indeed switching to hard drugs, and if so, to account for why this may be the case. We now will consider the harms that may be associated with cannabis use.

⁶ DSM-IV stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders.