Shotts prison is facing a drugs crisis after six prisoners overdosed and were rushed to hospital by ambulance at the weekend.
The inmates who were all being held on the same landing of the same hall in the high-security jail, collapsed after taking an illicit substance – which prison insiders think could be a chemical used to make “spice”.
They were taken to University Hospital for treatment after being discovered unresponsive.
A prison source told how the prisoners collapsed with “suspected drug overdoses every few hours,” and some looked “in a bad way”.
There are concerns that mail and other items going into the jail may be being soaked in chemicals such as those used in spice. That's despite drugs seizures in Scottish prisons more than doubling with over 5000 parcels being intercepted last year.
Spice is misleadingly known as a synthetic cannabinoid, because the mind altering chemicals are sprayed onto herbs allowing them to be smoked like cannabis. It can seriously affect the respiratory system and heart.
Lanarkshire Live raised concerns with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) in July this year about the availability of spice after hearing about its effects from a Shotts jail insider.
The insider told us: “They take spice and then they are totally zombied, they don’t have a clue what they are doing. It’s crazy stuff and there’s loads of them taking it. It leaves them in a worse state than smack [heroin] would.”
HMP Shotts was already operating under a cloud following a record number of deaths of inmates this year.
Eight prisoners at the jail have died since April, with at least two confirmed as drug-related.
The cause of a number of others is still "pending" with Fatal Accident Inquiries to be held into the deaths.
Three prisoners died in the space of 10 days in September and before that five died in a 15-week period.
There were only a total of 14 deaths in custody at the North Lanarkshire prison in the five previous calendar years from 2016 to 2020, and only two during that time were recorded as involving drugs.
The number of deaths in custody has soared in the last few years. Statistics from the Scottish Prison Service reveal that there have been 39 deaths this year in jails across the country, that's already five more lives lost than last year.
In 2012 there were 21 deaths, and for the following three years there were 24 deaths recorded in each.
However during 2018, 2019 and 2020 the numbers rose to 32, 37 and 34 respectively. During that three-year spell 15 of those deaths were recorded as drug related.
Gillian Mackay MSP, Scottish Greens health spokesperson, says the situation at Shotts is “extremely concerning” and should be treated as a public health issue.
She added: “This situation should remind us of the devastating impact that drug-related deaths continue to have on communities and families in Lanarkshire and Scotland as a whole.
“It’s important to remember that in some cases people come to prison with a history of addiction. These people will need specialist support and treatment. Prisons have a duty of care to those inmates and I look forward to engaging with both the prison and Justice Secretary in the coming days.”
Scotland’s Justice Secretary, Keith Brown, is already coming under fire from Scottish Conservative MSP Russell Findlay, a former investigative journalist. He has raised the Shotts prison drugs issue several times with the Scottish Government minister and accused him of “dithering”.
The Tory MSP posted a video on Twitter, shot outside the jail, in which he claimed it is only a matter to time before “more prisoners leave in body bags”. He also claimed the Justice Secretary refused to meet prison staff to hear their concerns.
An SPS spokesman said: “These substances are extremely dangerous to anybody that uses them and at times to people who come into contact with them.
“The challenge is that there is a very large range of different substances which are difficult to detect but we have worked very hard with partners to develop new ways of identifying them using intelligence to target and prohibit their introduction into our establishments. But it remains a real challenge which no one is complacent about and we recognise that moving forward, that challenge is going to be with us for a while.
“We take the safety and wellbeing of everybody living and working within our prisons very seriously and this is a threat to that safety and wellbeing that we’re working hard to address.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The prison service has robust security measures in place to prevent contraband entering our prisons and to ensure the safety of staff and those within its care."
**Don't miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
And did you know Lanarkshire Live is on Facebook? Head on over and give us a like and share!
