FCI Lexington is a colossal brick and concrete institution built in the federal style. It’s located in the rolling bluegrass country of north central Kentucky, an area of thoroughbred horse farms and big money. In summer, the weather is hot and humid, with absolutely stunning sunsets. Mild winters, and good farming country.
Originally designated the U.S. Narcotic Farm, Lexington, was opened on May 15, 1935. It was called an alternative institution within the federal prison system, which had, as a result of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, and to the dismay of prison wardens of the time, begun to be filled with a new class of prisoner: the drug addict.
Before the Harrison Act of 1914, drug use in America was unregulated, and a very small number of Americans used opiates regularly. Alcohol use was also popular for a segment of the population. For the religious right, both were tantamount to moral heresy, and could not be tolerated. The use of blatant racist and religious fears to push the Harrison Narcotics and Volstead acts through the U.S. Congress is a vivid and costly illustration of our country’s occasionally less-than-ethical, misguided values. The Harrison Act was designed to regulate and control drug production and distribution, allowing doctors to prescribe them in their practice. Before Harrison a doctor could prescribe opiates to addicted patients, allowing them to live a normal life under their care. The cost was minimal and the impact on society was invisible. But in a cruel twist, the courts and police interpreted the act to mean that doctors could not prescribe to addicts, because addiction was not recognized as a disease. After the passage of Harrison, doctors were prosecuted relentlessly—turning a minor medical problem into a major national criminal-justice issue. Thus began the War on Drugs, the greatest failure of social policy in America’s domestic history. Those attitudes, combined with the racist law-and-order politics of the last few decades, have evolved so destructively that, today, over two million Americans are under lock and key, with another seven million on parole or probation. And most are poor people of color, who use and sell no more drugs than whites do.
On the day I arrived at FCI Lex, I was sent to my assigned room in the Nu-Men Unit. It was recently vacated by a group of guys who were shipped out to the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta for taking part in the gang sexual abuse of another inmate who had testified against them in court. Apparently, they had recorded the entire event, complete with a running narration, on a portable cassette machine.
I noticed that on one of the beds was a photo of a young white woman smiling for the camera. When the fellow who was to be my first cellie showed up, he explained that he’d left the photo out so I would know he was white.
He was a long-haired southern boy and genial enough. Not a raging intellect, but not dangerous either. It turned out he was state-raised, and coveted his new position working in the kitchen. He was happy as could be about it. He had arrived a few weeks before me, and he was finding his footing. We both liked to smoke weed, so we got high together and got along fine. I quickly discovered that any drug you wanted was available if you had money. Reefer in particular was abundant.
Some of the fellows on the compound were far crazier than he was, and this was an eye-opener for me. The place was full of loonies. Early on I mentioned to him that I was looking at doing my bit as a monastic experience of self-examination and study. Apparently, he repeated this to one of the guys on the yard, who woke me up from a midafternoon nap with a hypodermic syringe sticking out of his ear, saying, “Kramer, you need to take your penitentiary experience seriously.” I thought this was very funny.
After I’d spent my first year in Lexington, I graduated to a single room. My new “house” was about five by twelve feet in size. With my arms completely outstretched, I could touch both walls. Since the facility was originally designed to be a hospital, there were also rooms for two, four, and even six to eight people, with their own toilets and showers.
I liked my single cell; it was my sanctuary, my cave. It was down at the end of the corridor on the third floor, and those of us who lived there had a good jump on the staff when they’d come snooping around. We had an early warning system of hoots, whistles, and assorted sounds that said, “Cops heading your way.”
I used to practice the guitar in my cell every day after lunch because the unit was empty. One day, one of the gangsters was walking by. He stuck his head in and said, “Hey, you the white boy with the Wah-Wah. You cool.”