PORTLAND – The throaty, urgent barking of German shepherds and Belgian Malinois echoed off the concrete walls in the Cumberland County Jail on Thursday as seven police dogs and their handlers searched the cells for drugs.

Three hundred inmates had been rousted from their cells shortly before 8 a.m. and confined to the gymnasium while the search teams scoured their belongings.

“If you come onto our property with drugs, you will get arrested. If you try to send drugs through the mail, we will arrest you,” Sheriff Kevin Joyce said at a news conference as the search got under way.

The search followed the arrests last week of four people, two inmates and two alleged accomplices, in connection with a smuggling operation that sent prescription drugs into the jail by mail.

In the fall, corrections officers noticed an increase in the number of inmates who were under the influence of drugs and who failed drug tests. The jail had banned contact between inmates and visitors a few years earlier to stem the flow of contraband.

The corrections officers found that drugs were sometimes being sent into the jail hidden in manila envelopes, Joyce said. Crushed pills or, increasingly, under-the-tongue strips were hidden under the paper flaps at the base of the envelopes.

Smugglers also have separated the layers of paper in holiday greeting cards and put drugs between the layers before re-laminating them, Joyce said.

The recent drug of choice is Suboxone, which is used to treat opiate addiction and can alleviate withdrawal symptoms or, in some cases, cause mild euphoria, authorities say.

The drug is in paper-thin sublingual strips that are yellow and about the width of the flap on the envelopes — easy to hide.

Thursday’s search, which ran from 8 a.m. to about 2 p.m., yielded about two dozen pills and small amounts of marijuana and powdered drugs.

Some of the pills and powder appeared to be Suboxone, as well as anti-anxiety medicine and unknown substances, said Capt. Steve Butts. None of the sublingual strips were found.

Joyce said the jail doesn’t routinely prescribe Suboxone or other addiction medications to inmates who are going through withdrawal.

Most of the drugs were found Thursday by officers, because dogs are typically trained to detect illegal substances like marijuana and cocaine, not prescription medicine.

Butts didn’t believe that searchers had found all of the drugs that were in the jail. While some inmates may have been surprised, others realized quickly what was happening.

“When they hear the dogs barking, they start flushing,” Butts said.

Some inmates will be charged, particularly if the drugs were found in a cell where just one inmate lives. Others may be referred to the disciplinary board, he said.

The penalty for trafficking in prison contraband can be as much as five years in prison.

Geoffrey Rushlau, the district attorney whose coastal district includes the Maine State Prison in Warren, has prosecuted prison trafficking cases. He called drug trafficking “a perpetual feature of the state prison.”

“We’ve seen inmates who are very close to their release date get caught smuggling drugs,” he said.

Rushlau said inmates have come up with creative schemes for smuggling drugs. In one, the inmate’s wife or girlfriend kisses him while pushing a balloon full of drugs into his mouth. Prison guards try to keep an eye on romantic encounters, but often the inmate ends up swallowing the drugs if confronted.

About three years ago, the Cumberland County Jail eliminated its substance abuse counseling program, Joyce said.

During a review of the jail’s medical services, a consultant recommended that the program be terminated because, with the average inmate’s stay just 23 to 28 days, a drug counseling program wasn’t worth the time or money, Joyce said.

Though Joyce estimates that more than 60 percent of the jail’s inmates are addicted to some type of drug when they arrive at the jail, he has no plans to reinstate substance abuse counseling.

When asked why someone would risk a longer jail sentence, Joyce replied, “Desperate people do desperate things. My experience with those who are addicted to drugs is that the drug takes over your life. Your body needs more and you just keep taking.”

Drugs can get into the jail when people who come in hide drugs in body cavities that jail officers cannot search without being invasive, Joyce said.

People are paid to hide drugs and get arrested on minor charges that get them into jail, where they can deliver the drugs, he said.

Authorities have a hard time bringing charges in smuggling operations because it can be difficult to base a criminal case on a piece of mail addressed to a particular inmate. Investigators try to track down the person who sent the drugs, but the return address is typically fictitious.

In the case that led to last week’s arrests, investigators used the contents of the envelopes and fingerprints to find the people they charged with sending the mail.

Two years ago, guards at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham started removing stamps from every envelope because people were allegedly putting Suboxone powder on the backs of the stamps. They also were incorporating the powder into drawings purportedly from prisoners’ children.

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey contributed to this report.

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:

dhench@pressherald.com