Programs being implemented in eight of the country’s largest prisons aimed at weaning a significant proportion of inmates off drugs are being sabotaged by a thriving trade in narcotics, Kathimerini has learned.

The rehabilitation programs have had a 60 percent success rate, according to data of the Therapy Center for Dependent Individuals (KETHEA). But the KETHEA programs, which are “dry” – that is, do not involve the dispensation of methadone or any other heroin substitute – are being undermined by well-organized drug rings with members inside and outside the jails, sources reveal.

Constantinos Varsamis, the warden of Diavata jail near Thessaloniki and a senior member of the national union of prison guards, told Kathimerini that members of drug-smuggling rings use various ruses to get the drugs into jail. According to the testimony of a drug addict serving time for petty theft in a jail on Corfu, one of the country’s most overcrowded, deals are usually struck in prison but payments are generally made on the outside, by a friend or relative of the user to a middleman of the ring.

A key problem is that half of some 12,000 inmates in the country’s jails are serving sentences for drug-related crimes and an estimated 70 percent of the total inmate population uses drugs in prison, chiefly heroin.

According to Christos Vettas, who heads an advisory committee for inmates in Thessaloniki jails, the conditions in most Greek prisons are not conducive to detoxification from drugs nor for a crackdown on the drug trade. Because of the overcrowding in most jails, and the disproportionately small ratio of guards to inmates, staff are primarily focused on averting escape attempts, Vettas said.

Also, the lack of adequate infrastructure and qualified staff is believed to hinder the progress of rehabilitation programs for inmates with drug addictions. Running regular educational and leisure programs for jail inmates would also help addicts who currently only have television for distraction during the day, Vettas added.