Chiron Francis writes about K2 in Texas prisons and the drug trade he saw unfold inside a crowded dormitory unit, where addiction, commissary, and indifference turned confinement into a daily fight for survival.

I walked into a dormitory-style prison unit for the first time on February 13, 2025, at 11:45 p.m. Forget what the word “dormitory” suggests. This was a warehouse of metal bunks packed three feet apart, 56 men to a room, five rooms to a section, 20 rooms in all.

No walls. No doors. No privacy.

Just bodies, noise, and the constant awareness of every man around you.

People come to prison for all sorts of drug-related offenses. Society believes incarceration provides a space for rehabilitation. They are wrong. Texas prisons are everything but rehab. Most drug addicts who are confined here leave as better addicts, their addictions enhanced by the very walls meant to contain them.

Call it a “self-induced solitary confinement.” There are two ways out: divine intervention or death.

I learned that fast.

I was assigned to 18 Dorm, 38 Bunk, at the end of the hallway — a section known as “The Trenches.” On my arrival at the gate, two men stood at the bars, arms dangling out as they conversed with a man in the dorm across the hall.

The C.O. opened the gate and said in his West African accent, “This is a good dorm!”

I asked myself, Is there such a thing?

Walking to my bunk, I noticed two men following me.

“Okay, here we go again!”

It was time to make my presence felt. I set my belongings on the metal bed. When I turned around, the men were upon me.

Physically, they appeared to pose no threat. From experience, I’ve learned: never underestimate a man because of his size.

The taller of the two was smiling as the other watched him speak.

“Hey, they call me Will Smith. If you need ANYTHING, I’m your guy.”

“Nah, I’m good,” I told him.

The other man spoke next. “If you need your rack cleaned, I’ll do it!”

“Rack?” I questioned.

“Yeah, your cubicle, your bunk.”

I looked down at the 5-by-7-foot, office-sized cubicle that would be my home for God knows how long.

“Is Will Smith your real name?” I asked.

“Nah, people just call me that because they say I look like him.”

Laughing under my breath, I had to ask, “Who? The actor?”

“Yeah man, the Fresh Prince!”

I could have been rude and reminded him that the real Will Smith was a Black man and he was white. But, on second thought, who was I to judge?

“And you? What do they call you?” I asked the other man.

“They call me Butters!”

Now, that’s a slick prison nickname.

Will Smith was studying me while I was speaking to Butters. Then he asked, “Hey, you smoke?”

Butters’s eyes filled with intrigue.

I quickly responded, “Nah, I don’t mess around.”

“Well, if you ever change your mind, I’m your guy. I can get weed, ice, K2, and tobacco.”

Will Smith was bold. He’d just met me, yet he had no concerns about who he was talking to. In no way did he hesitate to offer me illegal substances in a state facility. He had no worries about me being an undercover officer or a jailhouse snitch.

Something was wrong here. I had to ask myself, Am I in prison or back in the hood?

Butters suddenly became uninterested in me and walked away. Will, however, stayed focused. He was looking for a way in. He studied my belongings and concentrated on the commissary items.

Prison currency.

Butters distracted Will’s attention by waving him over with a handful of commissary items. Butters was standing at the gate, where I saw the other two men on my arrival. The same man across the hallway was anxiously waiting.

I sat on my bunk and watched Butters hand Will the commissary. Will, in turn, started sliding the items under the bars, across the hall to the waiting man. After the man collected the items, he slid back a black metal paper clip containing a small folded piece of paper.

Will retrieved the paper from inside the clip and slid the clip back across.

The transaction was done literally right under the C.O.’s nose.

Days passed, and Will Smith became my go-to person. When I needed to know something about prison functions or dorm rules, Will was my guy.

One of those days, I walked up on Will cutting a small piece of paper with a razor blade on top of a book.

Being nosy, I asked, “What’s up? What you got going on?”

“Cutting some strips out of this stamp to roll a stick for me and Butters,” he answered without looking up.

“A stamp? Like a postage stamp?” I asked.

“Well, no and yes. It’s not a postage stamp, but the size of one.”

“How many strips can you get out of a stamp?”

“Ten to 15. Depends on how good the dope is.”

“What? So the dope is sprayed on the stamp?”

“No, it’s sprayed on a sheet of paper, and the paper is cut into different sizes. They are priced according to their size.”

The mention of price or money had my attention.

“How much is a stick?” I asked.

“Two dollars’ worth of commissary.”

Butters walked over as we spoke. He stretched out his hand, and Will placed two needle-sized strips of drug-laced paper on top of a torn piece of toilet paper wrapper. Butters dropped his head and studied the contents inside his hand as he walked away.

I asked some more questions about the K2 drug plaguing Texas prisons before nature called me to duty.

I passed Butters’s cubicle on my way to the restroom. He had broken apart a pencil and removed the center lead. The lead had been broken into three equal pieces. He cautiously placed two pieces of lead in the negative and positive holes of his electrical outlet.

Then, with a small, rolled-up piece of toilet paper in one hand and the third piece of lead in the other, he lightly bridged the two protruding pieces with the third. They produced a spark that ignited the toilet paper.

Butters lit his stick with the burning paper.

I went into the restroom and was in there about three minutes. When I exited, I had to pass Butters’s cubicle. He was still sitting on his bunk, but he was slumped all the way over. His head was between his legs. His arms hung down on either side of him. His hands were resting on the floor, palms up.

I’d never seen anyone in such a state.

I watched closely to see if he was still breathing. I couldn’t tell, so I asked his neighbor, “Is he alright?”

“Yeah, he’s okay. He’s just slumped. He’ll snap out of it in a little bit. Then smoke some more. It’s how he does his time.”

I had seen and heard enough. I was walking back to my cubicle when I sensed tension in the dorm. Then that all-too-familiar musical ensemble broke the hostility: a multitude of correctional officers and jangling keys hurriedly ran past my dorm.

The lieutenant was frantically ordering the hallway C.O. to open Dorm 19’s gate. Some of the men in my dorm were already gathered at our gate, watching the spectacle.

The officers gained access and rushed in.

Next came the catcalls from down the hall, from where the officers first emerged. Three female nurses dressed in tight-fitting scrubs appeared. They were pushing a wheeled stretcher and carrying medical backpacks.

I asked the man standing next to me, “What’s going on?”

“Probably another fool had a tune attack.”

“Tune?” I asked.

“Yeah, K2. That’s what these idiots call that shit!”

As we were speaking, two officers came out of 19 Dorm. They were followed by the stretcher. One of the nurses was straddling an unconscious man, performing CPR. The C.O.s assisted the nurses in rolling the stretcher out into the hallway.

They stopped in front of my dorm, right where a few other men and I stood.

A second nurse traded positions with her co-worker who was performing the life-saving technique. The man was handcuffed to the stretcher. His skin was pale blue.

I knew he was dead.

Some of the inmates standing around me started laughing and high-fiving each other, while others shook their heads in disgust. I could smell alcohol on the breaths of those around me. The laughing men were drunk on hooch, homemade alcohol.

The remaining C.O.s exited 19 Dorm, removing their blue latex gloves and joining their colleagues. Together, they rolled the dead man down the hallway and out of sight.

Conversations began.

“Damn, that’s the second time this month!”

“That was Josh, wasn’t it?”

“God punished him for molesting his younger paraplegic brother.”

A familiar voice interrupted the chatter.

“Where did he get the smoke from?”

Someone answered, “That’s Sugar’s shit!”

I turned to see who had asked the last question. Butters and Will Smith stood side by side, holding handfuls of commissary items.

The man I’d been talking to turned to me and said, “Now, isn’t that insane? The same stuff that just killed a man is the same crap they want to smoke.”

“What? That’s crazy!” I said, looking at Will and Butters scrambling to get to the bars.

The man continued, “Yeah, they’re dying for a stick behind these bricks.”

Chiron Francis has been released after 19 years inside and is thriving on the outside.