‘You’ll die’: Cook County Jail cracks down on drug-soaked papers, but new substances enhance risk

COOK COUNTY, Ill. — With recently introduced measures cracking down on drug-soaked papers at the Cook County Jail leading to a decline in overdose deaths, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said law enforcement’s success in weeding out the contraband has emboldened smugglers to “up the lethality” of what they’re trying to get inside the jail.

Dart told WGN News Wednesday that efforts to reduce the number of drug-soaked papers getting to the jail’s general population have worked.

So far this year, the Cook County Sheriff said no one has died from an overdose at the jail, while eight such deaths happened in 2023, with half of those deaths linked to drug-soaked papers.

But according to Dart, while the jail’s crackdown has yielded success, it has also emboldened smugglers to crank up the dosage of what they’re trying to get inside the jail.

“Collectively, all the things we’ve done, which have driven down the amount of things that can get in the jail, has maybe driven them to up the lethality,” Dart said.

Dart said there used to be just one or two substances on the papers they confiscated. But papers confiscated last month revealed ten different substances after lab testing, with one substance being three times as lethal as fentanyl, another being an animal sedative known as “Tranq,” and many more being chemicals deputies have never seen before.

“That’s their sort of counter to what [we’re] doing,” Dart said. “it’s beyond reckless, dangerous for everyone involved.”

In June 2023, WGN Investigates dove into the underbelly of the criminal efforts to smuggle drug-soaked papers into the Cook County Jail.

Dart said these papers now account for 10% of the contraband found in the mail sent to the Cook County Jail, and the jail is now having doctors and public service announcements on loudspeakers warn detainees of the danger, hoping to save lives.

“Just trying to drive it home to everyone that you’ll die,” Dart said.

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