Washington Democrats’ obsession with “protecting” inmates has turned jails into fentanyl free-for-alls, where smuggled drugs hidden in body fat are leading to overdoses and near-death emergencies. Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders just exposed the absurd consequences of Washington’s new body scanner regulations, and it’s a perfect case study in how “compassion” gets people killed.
Last week, an obese inmate at Thurston County Jail smuggled fentanyl hidden in body fat folds, according to Sanders. He said that, “Once the drugs made their way in, a different inmate consumed the drugs and overdosed. Life-saving efforts from jail staff prevented the overdose from being fatal.”
Days later, it happened again—this time with drugs stashed under an inmate’s breast.
“A Corrections Sergeant observed an inmate acting oddly and immediately called for medical,” Sanders wrote. “By the time the nurse arrived, the inmate was unconscious. CPR was performed for 10 minutes by our nurse and corrections staff, along with Narcan deployment. The inmate has been transported to the hospital where they are stable and undergoing tests. The inmate suspected of smuggling the narcotics into the facility in this case was searched, and suspected fentanyl was located under their breast. The inmate will be booked on new felony charges.”
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How did we get here?
It shouldn’t be this easy for an obese inmate to allegedly smuggle drugs into jail. But we’re here because of foolish policy decisions dictating the radiation levels of body scanners used prior to entry into jails.
This disaster traces back to 2SSB 5695, a 2022 Democratic bill—though it had total Republican support—that prioritized banning “dehumanizing” strip searches over jail security. The law required prisons to adopt body scanners—a decent idea—but then handed rulemaking to the Department of Health (DOH), which cooked up WAC 246-230-040’s unworkable dose limits. The result? Scanners so weak they can’t distinguish drugs from body fat.
“The new rules under WAC 246-230-040, implemented in January 2025, force scanners to use laughably low radiation levels to appease activists screaming about ‘ALARA’ (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principles,” Sanders wrote.
The old radiation doses weren’t dangerous
Lawmakers will claim this protects inmates from radiation. That appears to be nonsense.
The old radiation dose—2.00 µSv per scan—was already safer than a dental X-ray. As Sheriff Sanders noted, an inmate would need 1,000 bookings a year to hit the annual limit. That’s physically impossible.
“Strip searches cannot be conducted on every inmate who is booked. Certain criteria must be met. The scanner can be used on every inmate as part of standard booking, but its effectiveness isn’t nearly what it was post-law change,” Sanders wrote.
Strip searches may have been unpleasant. But they were effective.
If lawmakers wanted to get rid of them, then they should have ensured that alternative ways to check for drugs are actually as effective. They didn’t do their due diligence. The same Department of Health that claimed COVID-19 vaccines stopped the spread of the coronavirus, unfortunately, cannot be trusted to develop radiation safety standards for inmates.
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