August 24, 2009

Tonight I was randomly selected along with 20 or so others to be given a UA. COII Coffee led the charge, as usual, in this attempt to crackdown on drug usage at Manzanita Unit. As mentioned in an earlier post, CO II Coffee's mission seems to be to rid the unit of dope - and this tough, but fair, CO is essentially the only "effective" obstacle for drugs and users on this unit.

"Clark to visitation" the House 1 CO announced in my dorm. I then heard him call 5 others.

Going up to Visitation I listened to the others gripe about how they'd just pissed. So did I, but I kept it to myself. What good would complaining do? If I didn't produce within 2 hours I'd be on report for failure to produce. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

Entering the visit room, I saw COII Coffee and two other COs at a table. About a dozen guys sat in chairs around the visit room, Styro-foam cups in hand.

"Clark, here's your cup. Have a seat." Coffee greeted me. "Thank you", I replied cordially, accepting the cup and heading straight to the drinking fountain.

After ten minutes of idle chatter, joking, and a couple cups of water, I was ready to go. The guy before me wasn't able to produce, a medical condition, he explained. I was ready, waiting and on deck until it was explained to the guy before me that he had to pay for the UA. $20.00!!!! Now, I wasn't sure that I could produce. (Ha ha ha ha ha - stage fright! ~ moderator)

Entering the inmate restroom, for once it seemed warm. Brightly lit, but warm. "Strip", the CO that accompanied me told me. Pulling off my shirt I asked, "can I leave my socks on?" "Nope", he replied. Stripping completely naked - years of being strip searched has made me 100% comfortable being seen nude - I went through the typical search procedures.

Tearing open the sealed package containing the urine specimen cup and lid, "remove the cup and lid", the CO directed, extending the open metallic package toward me. I reached out, withdrew the cup and lid.

"Please don't touch the cup with your penis", He told me. I couldn't help but chuckle. The words spoken out loud sounded so funny to me. Without too much anticipation, I provided the sample requested.

Getting dressed, I watched the CO seal the lid of the cup and walk off. I hurriedly dressed to watch the new test cup at work. I walked to the table where Coffee sat, filling out the UA documents for my sample, which sat before her on the table.

"Were you able to find it to piss in that cup, Shannon?" A guy joked with me. "Yeah, I might not be able to touch the bottom of the cup but I can touch all sides", I responded, playing along.

"So how does this work?" I asked Coffee, crouching down to check out the UA cup. Crouching down next to me, she turned the cup so I could see the litmus strips built in the inside of the cup. "If a purple line appears on each of these, you're doing good", she explained, pointing at four points on the cup with tiny letters printed on it (OPI: Opiates. THC: Weed. BRB: Barbiturates. AMP: Amphetamines, BNZ:...??? ALC: Alcohol). "This test is extremely sensitive and accurate. See how all your lines are dark? That is excellent. If they are light it means you've messed around, but not in the past couple of days. If you've used in the past couple of days, no line appears. I'll usually let people slide if I can at least see a shadow of a line." Coffee told me. "This is interesting shit!" I told her. "Isn't it?" she agreed.

"What's a BNZ?" I asked, pointing to the letters. "Those are like the date-rape drugs, I think", she responded. "Well it's good to know I haven't been date-raped lately", I joked. She laughed and said, "You're good, go ahead and head back to your house."