Drugs appear repeatedly in Reggie’s Jail Diaries. Dilaudid, OxyContin, Percocet, Demerol, Valium, Serax and other drugs were available at different times, sometimes in quantities large enough to be shared among several inmates.

That raises an obvious question: How were the drugs getting into jail?

Reggie never set out to document a drug-smuggling system. He was writing about his own life, so his diaries provide only occasional clues about how particular supplies reached inmates.

What follows is what we can establish from his writings so far.

Concealing Contraband

Reggie documented firsthand the practice sometimes known as keestering—concealing possessions or contraband inside the rectum.

In a June 15 Jail Diary entry, while preparing to be taken to segregation, he wrote that he concealed tobacco and a lighter inside his body.

Those items were not drugs, so the entry does not establish that Reggie used this method to smuggle drugs. It does, however, show that body concealment was something he personally used to prevent possessions from being discovered or confiscated.

Reggie’s experience and the broader practice are examined separately in Keestering.

Drugs Through the Kitchen

One of Reggie’s clearest references to how drugs reached him appears on November 11, 1999:

“The pills arrived today. We got em through the kitchen. There were 4 oxy-codone and 8 other things which I was unable to identify by looks or by the buzz.”

This establishes that Reggie understood the kitchen to have been part of the route by which these pills reached him.

It does not tell us who brought the drugs into the institution or exactly what “through the kitchen” meant. In particular, it would be wrong to interpret the passage as evidence against kitchen workers or correctional staff when Reggie does not identify who was involved.

A Friend on the Outside

On April 29, 1999, Reggie recorded another apparent route:

“One of Tylers friends brought in some Demerol today.”

Here, Reggie specifically connects the arrival of Demerol with someone associated with another inmate. He does not explain how the person got the drug through institutional security, but the entry provides evidence that at least some drugs came from people connected to inmates outside the jail.

The “Bathroom Method”

I also remember Reggie describing a method involving a bathroom or washroom that correctional authorities eventually discovered. My recollection is that drugs may have been brought into the institution by a visitor and left somewhere for an inmate to retrieve.

I have not yet relocated Reggie’s original diary entry, however, so this remains a family recollection rather than a documented method.

If the original passage is found, it will be added here.

Expected Deliveries

Other diary entries show that drugs did not always appear unexpectedly.

In February 2000, Reggie repeatedly referred to a supply he was waiting for. When it finally arrived, he wrote:

“Well, my ship finally came in today.”

His account indicates that he knew something about the drugs and quantities he expected to receive. He received fewer “S’s”—apparently Serax—than expected and received OxyContin when he had initially expected Dilaudid. The drugs were then divided among several inmates.

The diary does not tell us how that particular supply physically entered the institution. What it does show is that Reggie and other inmates could know in advance that drugs were coming.

What We Know So Far

Reggie’s diaries do not provide a complete explanation of how drugs entered jail, but they give us several clues: pills arriving “through the kitchen,” Demerol being “brought in” by an inmate’s friend, expected supplies that inmates were waiting to receive, and a possible bathroom method that still needs to be confirmed from the original diary.

There were undoubtedly other ways contraband could enter correctional institutions, but this archive does not need to catalogue them unless they help us understand Reggie’s experience.

As more of his Jail Diaries are reviewed, additional evidence may emerge. Until then, the gaps should remain gaps.

What makes these fragments valuable is precisely that they are not a general account of prison smuggling.

They are glimpses of the drug supply inside jail as Reggie himself encountered it.