Inmates Die After Smoking Drug-Soaked Paper as Smuggling Ring Exposed in Chicago Jail

The deaths of six inmates at a Chicago prison have exposed a drug-smuggling ring. Instead of conventional narcotics, traffickers found a new and creative way to get drugs into prisons by lacing paper with a synthetic cannabinoid.

But the synthetic cannabinoid, later determined to be Pinaca, turned out to be fatal, as multiple inmates died after smoking the paper in the last three years. The string of deaths began in 2023 when 57-year-old Thomas Diskin was found dead in his cell at Cook County Correctional Facility.

Investigators did not find anything around Diskin’s body that suggested foul play, except tiny strips of paper. When Cook County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Staff Brad Curry decided to get the paper tested in a lab, the results surprised him. The lab reported that the paper was laced with Pinaca. As Diskin smoked the paper, its overdose caused his death.

However, before the lab results came out, other prisoners had already become victims of the drug. Within two months of Diskin’s death, two more inmates died at Cook County Correctional Facility after smoking paper. These included a 23-year-old and a 35-year-old man.

Talking about the situation, Curry said in a statement to The New York Post, “I said, we need to test this and find out what’s going on with it. We didn’t know what was on [the paper in Diskin’s cell], but we knew it was a drug. And it was a race against time … we had a new drug that is very, very toxic and very, very deadly, that Narcan apparently didn’t work on.”

Before 2023 ended, the drug had already claimed six lives in the prison. Officials learned that the drug-soaked paper was being smuggled into jail through letters, cards, books, and photographs. To curb the menace, the jail authorities began warning prisoners and inspecting every letter in the mail room.

But the strips of paper were sometimes so small that prison guards could not notice them. Even police dogs could not sniff and identify the synthetic drug. Meanwhile, smugglers continued their operation by coming up with new drugs that could go undetected when laced on papers.

Curry acknowledged that even some prison officers colluded with the drug dealers and allowed the papers inside the prison in exchange for money. “If you’re a dirty officer, [inmates working as dealers] will give them a certain amount of that every time they bring in a sheet of paper … so they’re doing it for the money. It’s so lucrative,” he said in a statement.

After an extensive investigation, the officials were finally able to arrest a smuggler who had been supplying narcotics to prisons in Illinois, North Carolina, and Indiana. At his home, investigators found two books soaked in synthetic cannabinoids.

Following efforts by the prison officials, the number of Pinaca-related deaths reduced at the facility in 2024 and 2025. Officials reported one death linked to smoking drug-soaked paper in each of these years. However, the toll is rising again, with two deaths in 2026 already suspected to be linked to synthetic cannabinoids.