TDCJ's Intercept Of Drug-Filled Toolbox Ruins Inmates' Day

When the pot, meth, Ecstasy and tobacco just won't cut it

​When you think about it, anytime you try to get a toolbox delivered to a prison, you're going to raise some suspicion. You'd have to figure the authorities aren't just going to carry it down to Cellblock D and say "Here you go, here's the file, screwdriver and chisel you ordered!"

So chances are, that package is going to be inspected. And x-rayed. And when one such toolbox was examined at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville last week, officials discovered a veritable Sam's Club of items designed to make a prison stretch go easier.

Packed away in the box was five ounces of pot, some chewing tobacco, five grams of meth, 139 Ecstasy pills, two bags of Jolly Ranchers and some do-rags, TDCJ spokeswoman Michelle Lyons tells Hair Balls.

As Slim Pickens said as he examined the survival kit on a Russian-bound nuclear bomber in Dr. Strangelove, "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."

But...Jolly Ranchers?

Not as unusual as you might think, Lyons says. One Death Row inmate requested green Jolly Ranchers for his last meal.

Ecstasy? Are they having raves in prison? "That is an odd place for Ecstasy," she says. Hey, who are we to judge?

The package, discovered last Thursday but first reported (as far as we can tell) by the Houston Chronicle today was addressed simply to the unit's maintenance shop. Which is quite the party place, it sounds like.

An investigation is ongoing.