PARIS – Some inmates have palmed their drugs.

Others slyly slide a pill underneath their tongues.

And still some ease it underneath their partial dental plate.

It doesn’t work.

Jail Administrator Ernest F. Martin said he has seen a lot of tricks during his 25 years at the jail. And Oxford County Sheriff Skip Herrick thinks it’s time that the responsibility of administering drugs was not on the shoulders of jailers.

“An inmate could hoard the drug he’s taking. Save them so he has a couple on hand and then maybe get a buzz by taking them all at once,” Martin said. “We look in their mouths with a flashlight. Make them wiggle their tongues and we have to check their hands to make sure they didn’t cup it.

“Then someone could save them to intentionally overdose,” he said. “We could be liable for that.”

The responsibility placed on jailers and the time it takes out of their day are two big reasons why Herrick approached county commissioners about paying to have medical services at the jail contracted.

Martin said administering to the needs in jails is contracted out in most of the 16 Maine counties. He said it takes two jailers to distribute medications and they can spend 30 to 45 minutes, four times a day, doing it. He said jailers could concentrate more on their primary responsibility, security, if they could drop the medication dispensing duty. “We’re all tied up in knots sometimes,” Martin said.

Martin said the jail, under directions from the state, developed a stringent, four-page policy in 1995-96 for administering medications.

Martin said it outlines the entire procedure from placing medications into a cup to checking to make sure it was consumed.

“When someone messes with his medication we have to call Dr. Lonnie Lauer, the jail physician,” Martin said. “He can stop the medication at any time.”

Herrick said he will be seeking a bid from Allied Region Correctional Health to take over medical duties at the jail and Lauer.

He said any doctor or medical provider in Maine was welcome to make an offer on administering the service. Other responsibilities of bidders would include conducting sick call, physical examinations, administering shots and reviewing prescriptions.

“Dr. Lauer has been very devoted in working with the staff,” Herrick said. “We’re dealing with a lot of prescription medicines. He keeps on top of it and knows who’s getting what.”

Carole Mahoney, administrative assistant for the county commission, said the requests for proposals would be due Feb. 13 and reviewed at the county commissioners meeting Feb. 17.

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