Wiesbaden/Wittlich (dpa/lhe) – To combat drugs in prisons, drug scanners could also be used in Hesse, as in some other federal states. In order to better recognize so-called new psychoactive substances, Hesse is currently examining whether to join the existing project of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Hessian Ministry of Justice explained at the request of the German Press Agency. Accordingly, scanners could be used as additional measures “to the numerous other measures to combat drugs”. The Hessian prisons already had drug detection dogs, for example.
According to the Ministry, almost all seizures of drugs over the past five years have involved small amounts of cannabis. After 109 seizures in 2020, the number of cases had fallen again somewhat: in 2021, drugs were discovered and seized in 78 cases in Hessian prisons, last year there were 90 drug finds.
According to the information, the number of inmates addicted to drugs in the Hessian correctional system has recently increased to 1705 in the past year. For comparison: in 2021 there were 1494 and in 2018 1346 drug dependent prisoners.
In the summer of 2018, a detector that was unique in Germany at the time was launched in the Wittlich correctional facility. The device is now being used in more and more federal states, the head of the facility, Jörn Patzak, recently told the dpa. Including Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, a total of ten federal states are cooperating, and other federal states as well as neighboring European states have signaled their interest.
The new psychoactive substances are about synthetic cannabinoids that are smuggled to prisoners in prisons. According to Patzak, they are dripped onto paper and sent to the prisons with letters and children’s pictures, and cannot be seen or smelled. With the detector, the substances could be tracked down and continuously updated in a database.
