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It should be almost impossible to smuggle drugs into the Edmonton Remand Centre.

There is no open-air exercise yard at the state-of-the-art provincial jail, where somebody with a strong arm or a drone could loft an illicit package.

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The centre does not allow visits — visitors meet their loved ones through off-site video terminals — ruling out in-person handoffs.

Drugs stowed inside a body cavity should be detected by a newly installed body scanner, through which all inmates entering the facility must pass.

Even inmates taking suboxone or methadone as part of opioid maintenance therapy must spend 30 minutes in a locked tank, to prevent them from regurgitating the substances for sale on the black market.

But drugs are still finding a way inside.

Provincial jails, which house defendants awaiting trial and inmates serving sentences shorter than two years, have been struggling to respond to the opioid crisis. Between January 2016 and Oct. 1, 2018, there were 224 overdoses in Alberta provincial jails, according to Alberta Health Services.