LEXINGTON -- Drug testing at Oklahoma prisons reflected a significant drop
in inmate drug use since last year, state corrections officials said
Friday. Random drug testing at the state's prisons, private prisons and
contract halfway houses and jails in 2002 showed 2.9 percent of inmates
testing positive for drugs, corrections officials told Board of Corrections
members at their meeting Friday. This is down from 5.6 percent in 2001.

Mary Smith, administrator of programs, said the 2002 numbers represent "an
all-time low" of positive drug tests among Oklahoma inmates.

The numbers continued a downward trend of positive drug tests since 1999.
In that year, 9.8 percent of inmates tested were positive for drug use.
That fell to 8.7 percent in 2000.

The department has used drug dogs to search for drugs, every day at some
prisons. Two prisons, the Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown and
the Lawton Community Corrections Center, were subject to "facility sweeps,"
where the entire prison and every inmate is searched.

In those sweeps, 10 inmates were found with drugs at Mack Alford, which had
793 prisoners. No inmates were found with drugs in the Lawton sweep. Smith
also credited the department's substance- abuse treatment program for
helping curb inmate drug use. But the biggest boost came from improvements
at Oklahoma's private prisons, contract halfway houses and county jails.

In 1999, the department's contractors showed 12.4 percent of inmates tested
positive for drugs, according to a department study. That number dropped to
3.2 percent in 2002.

"The contract facilities have done a lot better," Smith said.

Marijuana was the most common drug found, the study shows.