Report: 6 LSD-taking inmates hospitalized

FARIBAULT, Minn., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- An incident of LSD use by inmates at a prison in Faribault, Minn., resulted in violent reactions that hospitalized the prisoners, corrections reports indicated.

Correction reports and interviews with prison officials indicated the six inmates attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the state prison on Christmas Eve and later ingested the hallucinogen, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Tuesday.

Corrections officials declined to offer a characterization of the incident, but acknowledged guards were exposed to a sequence of medical emergencies and physical confrontations with violent, hallucinating prisoners. Four of the inmates were transported by helicopter to the Twin Cities and two were hospitalized locally in the southern Minnesota city.

"Our first mission in running a prison is protecting the safety of the staff and the inmates," Assistant Commissioner David Crist told the Star Tribune. "Smuggling drugs into prisons has been going on forever, and we are constantly conducting exercises to stay on top of it."

The sequence of events began about 12:30 p.m. Dec. 24, when guards found an inmate in his cell, lying on the floor and unresponsive. For the next seven hours, guards responded to reports of inmates either being disoriented or out of control.

The state Department of Corrections was investigating how the drug was smuggled into the prison and how widely it was distributed. No arrests have been made.

All six prisoners have recovered and were returned to the state's largest prison, which holds more than 2,000 inmates.