August 29, 2014
The wildest thing happened today, my first urine screen for drugs. But that's not the crazy part, what's crazy is the entire prison was urine screened this morning, that's right, every single inmate in this prison. I woke up at my usual 5:30a.m., made myself a cup of coffee and watched the news for a few minutes before getting ready to start my workout. I could hear more than one guard out in the dayroom which usually means something irregular is happening, so I looked out my cell door window to see what was going on. I could see three guards sitting at a table with boxes and paperwork all around them. I had no idea what they were doing, so I put on my headphones and started doing my crunches, then Kurt jumped out of bed, saying that they were clicking the locks on all of our doors, yelling for us all to come out into the dayroom. That's when we could see all the urine cups sitting on the tables. As I looked around I could see many surprised faces, many worried faces and also some indifferent faces too. Nobody saw this coming. I've heard people say before that nobody ever gets a urine test in here because the prisons can't afford to do it. This is a common rumor because inmates don't usually get a drug screen unless staff has a substantial reason to believe someone has been using drugs and this is my first time in over three years that I've been tested. Well actually it might be my second time, because I think I was tested at Lebanon, but I'm not sure if that was for medical reasons, or a normal drug screening procedure. At about 6a.m. is when everybody was called off our cells, from that point the guards told us we had until 9a.m. to pee in a cup, or else be automatically counted as a positive for drug and alcohol abuse. One at a time, in order starting with the first cell in the block, the guards called out our names, handed us a urine cup and escorted us to our cell to watch us pee in a cup. One man at a time, one cell at a time, you can imagine that this took all morning. My cell is one of the last ones on the top range so Kurt and I had to patiently wait for a couple of hours to be called. Having already drunk a strong cup of coffee I was certainly ready to get it over with. Close to four hours later they finally finished with everybody in the unit. Having many inmates say they were unable to urinate, likely trying to avoid an inevitable dirty urine screen. Later on, after count and in horticulture class talking to other inmates is when I realized that it wasn't just my unit to get drug tested, it was the entire compound. Now many inmates are wondering just what they're going to do as punishment for so many positive drug screens at the same time. Generally dirty urine means an automatic trip to the hole. Many men are saying that there isn't enough room in the hole for all the dirty urines. Fortunately, as a man with more than three years of sobriety I have nothing to worry about, yet I am anxious to see just how many inmates test positive for drugs or alcohol and exactly what they're going to do with them.
