Honey Buns Are The New Prison Currency

Most people know from watching MSNBC’s Lock Up that tobacco products are generally the most coveted prison currency but in Florida that’s not the case. According to the St. Petersburg Times Mrs. Freshley’s Grand Honey Buns are the new gold. They sell better than tobacco, envelopes and cans of Coke across Florida prisons, where 270,000 of the sugary diabetes-in-a-bag pastries get sold every month. Here’s a break down of the level of Honey Bun fandom in the bing:

•Inmates in North Carolina used honey buns to “sweeten a wine they fermented from orange juice.”

•Tank Johnson, the NFL player, would apparently eat 40 honey buns for dessert.

•An unemployed father who was saved from the electric chair by public defenders paid his lawyers in honey buns. (The lawyer says: “They were good, too.”)

•In at least two cases, inmates have reportedly been murdered over honey buns.

•A Florida bail bondsman was purportedly paying an inmate in honey buns for business referrals.

•“At the Stock Island Detention Center, outside Key West, scheming inmates offered overnight arrestees in the jail’s drunk tank an irresistible deal: their Social Security numbers for a honey bun. Using the numbers, they filled out tax forms with phony information a scam that cost the IRS more than $1 million in fraudulent refunds.”

This is disturbing but also interesting. Why would someone actually commit murder over a piece of junkfood? But on the flipside, can you imagine if you could pay for things in honey buns? That would be sweet (no pun intended). [Gawker]

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