Death by Paper

Inmates were overdosing in a Chicago jail. At least six had died. It was mysterious. There were no needles, no drug paraphernalia near the victims. Next to one body there were only scraps of burned paper, bits of ash.

That paper, Azam Ahmed and Matt Richtel report, was the culprit. Dealers spray it with toxic new designer drugs that promise ecstatic relief from captivity and often deliver death. “A lot of us are facing life in prison,” one former inmate told them. “To leave that behind, even for a minute, is all you want.” Justin Wilks, the head investigator at the jail, said he soon found the drugs smuggled into the facility on sheets of paper, on the pages of books, on letters and cards and photographs.

The jail increased its surveillance of inmates and their visitors. Guards searched more cells. In the mail room, they inspected every item. It hardly mattered. Smugglers got around them by lacing legal correspondence with the novel drugs. They sent sealed packages that appeared to be from Amazon, containing books soaked in drugs.

Another inmate died. Wilks had been investigating the drugs in his jail for well over a year and had no idea who the supplier was. And the drugs themselves continued to evolve faster than anyone could track them.

It’s not just Chicago. The number of new synthetic drugs has about tripled since 2013, with over 1,440 appearing. The designer drugs are killing at a high rate, too.