North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Afron Jones is advocating for the use of cannabis for drug-dependent inmates. Prescribed cannabis could in fact help reduce overdose deaths and violence as well as help with opioid addiction, the Guardian reports.
Jones states that synthetic cannabinoids are common in prisons and are deadly whereas cannabis is not. Currently, prisoners are given heroin substitutes, such as methadone and buprenorphine while some others are given strong pain killers. Those addictions treatments are not only addictive but also dangerous.
“If they’re on opioids, why can’t they be prescribed cannabis? At the end of the day, opioids are a damn sight more dangerous than cannabis. It would be an improvement on the illegal spice smuggled in by corrupt prison officers too.” – Jones to the Guardian
Indeed, allowing prescribed cannabis inside prison would lower illegal smuggling, a cause for which 300 officers and outside staff have been fired in the past 5 years in England and Wales. The aim of this plan is to make prisons safer both for inmates and staff.
In fact, from 2008 to 2016, 88 drug-related deaths were reported in the U.K and Wales prisons, according to the Office for National Statistics, data outlined by the Guardian.
Supplying cannabis in controlled conditions could not only prevent drug deaths but also improve the quality of life of inmates who suffer from anxiety and depression.
