EVERETT, Wash. — Heroin use is so bad in Snohomish County that a shocking number of inmates in the Snohomish County Jail are having dangerous withdrawal symptoms.
One corrections officer called the jail the county's biggest detox center.
The Herald reports that 90 percent of the 52 inmates locked up in the jail's medical unit were experiencing heroin withdrawals.
The medical unit is severely overcrowded because so many inmates are having withdrawals. It's designed to hold 24 patients.
As recently as 2013, it typically was at two-thirds capacity.
So far this year, it houses an average of 44 inmates a day.