http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17161130%255E2702,00.html
Need a heroin hit? Bali jail's the place
Stephen Fitzpatrick in Denpasar
07nov05
THE Bali jail where 11 Australians are incarcerated on drug charges has become the Indonesian island's central distribution point for heroin, amphetamines and other drugs.
A crackdown on narcotics, gambling and prostitution in Denpasar's main red-light district has driven illicit drug use in the city even further underground and seen heroin flood into the prison in the suburb of Kerobokan, making it the safest place for Bali's growing number of addicts to get a fix.
It is also the cheapest. A packet, or cap, of heroin can cost a visitor to the jail as little as 50,000 rupiah ($6.80), while the street price for the same amount -- 0.1g or less -- is 150,000 rupiah to 200,000 rupiah.
Inmates can buy a packet of heroin for about 20,000 rupiah, but the street price for a gram of the drug is anywhere up to 1 million rupiah.
Meanwhile, Bali and Medan, in north Sumatra, have become key staging points for exporting heroin further afield -- including to Australia.
The easy availability of the drug at Denpasar jail is an open secret, health workers and users say. Large amounts of heroin are transported in and out of the jail, home to convicted marijuana smuggler Schappelle Corby, accused ecstasy user Michelle Leslie and the Bali Nine alleged heroin trafficking gang.
Organised crime gangs, under the loose umbrella of the local "Laskar Bali" syndicate, are understood to be responsible for much of the drug traffic, but users and former dealers say some prison guards are also involved.
Jail security is lax, with many visitors able to enter and leave without being searched. Two former inmates said heroin had been concealed in tennis balls thrown over the jail wall on prearranged signals.
Other methods included visitors concealing heroin in the soles of sandals that were then swapped with shoes worn by dealers on the inside, and hiding the drug in packages -- such as babies' nappies or food -- brought in for prisoners.
Several users told The Australian heroin was easily obtained in the jail.
"We have a saying: 'You go into jail a chicken thief and come out an addict'," said psychiatrist and drug addiction specialist Denny Thong.
Long-term heroin user Yenny Lismiati, a 36-year-old Javanese woman from Surabaya who has done two stretches in Kerobokan for narcotics use, said it was often easiest to go into the jail, shoot up and then leave, so there was no chance of detection by the police stationed outside.
Ms Lismiati, who is married to an Australian man, both of them long-term addicts, and both now following a fledgling methadone treatment program in Denpasar, said that from the addict's perspective there was little difference whether you were inside or out.
Ms Lismiati, who like her husband is HIV-positive, said scant attention was paid to the health problem of needle sharing in the jail, which has a methadone clinic and bleaching program for sterilising syringes, but no needle exchange program.
Chief jail doctor Anak Agung Gede Hartawan admitted drug use in the prison was a problem but insisted it was an issue that all jails faced.
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