Correctional Officer Busted Smuggling Synthetic Weed Into Jail

It’s typical for a correctional facility to conduct unannounced spot-searchers. Usually, these shake-downs turn up contraband among the inmates. But every so often, these searches bust a correctional officer instead. So it was in Louisiana on Monday, where a Richwood Correctional officer busted smuggling synthetic weed into jail is now sitting behind bars himself.

Correctional Officer Caught Hiding Fake Weed In Potato Chip Bags

Richwood Correctional Center is a medium-security county jail just off Interstate 20 in northern Louisiana. The facility is owned and operated by Lasalle Management Company.

Lasalle operates 18 correctional facilities throughout Georgia, Texas and Louisiana. Lasalle’s website states that the facility’s “distinguished security team is dedicated to providing professional and efficient services to all of our partners.”

At Lasalle’s Richwood facility, a sweep found cigarette tobacco, a cell phone, and synthetic marijuana on the person of 41-year-old correctional officer Tyre D. Manning.

According to the police report, Manning had placed the synthetic cannabis inside sandwich bags. Manning apparently tried to hide the baggies of synthetic weed inside a larger potato chip bag.

After the discovery of the contraband, police booked Manning into the Ouachita Correctional Center in Richwood.

Manning is currently in confinement until his arraignment. No further information on his status is available at this time.

What Is Synthetic Marijuana?

Unlike naturally grown cannabis, synthetic marijuana is chemically processed.

In fact, it’s incorrect to call synthetic marijuana a cannabis product at all. Rather, synthetic weed is a chemical analog that imitates the structure of THC.

The synthetic cannabinoids bind to the same receptors as THC, however, and are capable of producing a euphoric high. But the chemicals also have a much higher affinity than phytocannabinoids.

As a result, synthetic cannabinoids can have an effective potency anywhere from two to one hundred times stronger than THC.

That’s why synthetic cannabinoids have a bad reputation for inducing serious side effects. Users have reported chest pain and vomiting, vision loss, high blood pressure and increased heart rate, headaches, agitation and even psychotic episodes. Synthetic cannabinoid abuse has even caused deaths.

Unfortunately, such products have flooded the market. Often referred to as “Spice” or “K2,” synthetic cannabinoid products are widely available.

Yet they have no FDA approval. Furthermore, manufacturers frequently shuffle and substitute different ingredients to keep the products in a legal grey area. In short, these products have no regulation whatsoever.

So why would people want to use potentially dangerous synthetic weed? One reason is that a urine test cannot detect synthetic cannabinoid use.

Final Hit: Correctional Officer Busted Smuggling Synthetic Weed Into Jail

Easier to get one’s hands on, and harder to detect, synthetic weed is frequently a smuggler’s choice if said smuggler happens to be a correctional officer.

And of course, officer Manning wasn’t the only correctional officer busted smuggling synthetic weed into jail. Not even this month. Not even in Louisiana.

Less than a month ago, police arrested correctional officer Samantha Suel smuggling synthetic weed into Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel.

So Manning loses points for lack of originality. Doubly so for his chosen delivery method.

Just last week, in Memphis, a grandmother is behind bars for allegedly trying to smuggle weed and a bunch of other drugs into Shelby County Corrections.

How did she do it? Inside a bag of chips. Doritos, to be exact.

Sarah Griffin, who is 68, says people tricked her into smuggling the weed for her grandson. She says she believed the Doritos bag contained a cell phone.

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