Police should never be permitted to direct medical professionals to do anything to a person in their custody unless it is to save their life. Medical professionals should be hyper-trained on how to tell police “hell no” and to report their requests to an independent agency for investigation.
There are other types of scenarios where out of control cops bully doctors and nurses into doing illegal things, two that I have read about:
- forcing a suspect to be subject to anal cavity search by a doctor at a hospital after a traffic stop
- forcing hospital staff to run blood tests on an awake, non-consenting suspect
Everyone who has ever dealt with the medical world for a personal or family problem understands that there are few “sure things” and that something that worked miraculously for someone’s problem might not work for yours, even if they seem like the same problem. Allowing police a position to direct medical care is utterly outrageous and irresponsible.
That said, what was done to Elijah McCain is one of the sickest, most unacceptably fucked up nightmare scenarios I’ve ever heard of. The initial interaction was a result of racist police who then had their victim murdered because they never saw him as a person, just another potential criminal.
Medical professionals do refuse! If you remember Alex Wubbels a nurse who refused to do a blood draw stating that she would not unless the patient was under arrest, a warrant had been issued or the patient had consented.
She was arrested, although not charged and was later apologized to. The cop was fired and it also lead to Utah changing its blood draw laws.
The cops involved went back to where they killed Elijah McCain and posed for a group photo, reportedly re-enacting his death.
This is the behavior I’d expect from a serial killer.
Edit: they then distributed or showed this photo to the rest of the precinct. We know because a whistleblower notified the media. To my eye, this means that they expected the rest of the precinct to approve of this behavior, which is extremely alarming.
I work as a paramedic, and on occasion have to sedate folks. I have never (and will never) sedated someone at the request of the police. I can think of two occasions where the decision to sedate was a discussion between the cops and I (trying to come up with alternatives). It's also common for me to ask the police for assistance physically restraining someone in order to make the sedation process safer. That's as far as the involvement of the police should go. I agree 100% with your assessment of Elijah McCain's killing.
That being said, sedation is an important tool, and often the safest course of action for a patient that would otherwise be a danger to themselves or others. A prolonged fight can be fatal for someone who is pushing their body further than it should go.
It definitely has to be done correctly though, and given the number of cases where it was very clearly done incorrectly, I do think changes need to be made.
Don't forget psych evaluations - with the implication that they should be found unfit for release. This one is a favorite of "cops" that don't actually have authority to arrest people or no probable cause for it.
It's unquestionably a lynching. But this is what this perverted culture tolerates. Rather than the public participating in the lynching directly, it has hired professional lynchers.
True, and I think there are lot of deniers of how the racist history of the US influences its racist present.
The mindset that permits people to shrug off the killing of Elijah McClain, and assume he must have done something to deserve it, is the same that celebrated public lynchings.
You say that like its a positive. It would be much more straightforward to prosecute an officer injecting ketamine. The medical "professionals" are catspaws.
It's used as a treatment for drug overdoses ("excited delerium") which appears to be why it was used here. Of course it's a catch-all term, there's no way to tell offhand just what street drugs someone is on. There has to be a reason it took half a dozen people to hold him down.
Also, there's no mention in this article of police directing the paramedics to do anything. Can you point me to what gave you that idea?
> There has to be a reason it took half a dozen people to hold him down.
This is the kind of rationalization that gets policies like this instituted. Having to be held down by six people isn't a requirement for being diagnosed with "excided delirium," anything is sufficient, because it's not a falsifiable diagnosis. The look in someone's eye can be enough. Talking back can be enough.
Also, by "enough," I mean enough for people who are already reactionaries of the law and order type to rationalize it. If it happened to a hypothetical white guy in some office complaining about his tax bill (who also showed no aggression and only tested positive for trace amounts of marijuana), could you imagine that people would still be alluding to "some reason" why "excited delirium" was actually a cool and reasonable diagnosis?
I mean, this is a violinist massage therapist who volunteered at animal shelters. This event is just more evidence that video will neither save you nor avenge you. You're as likely to be able to keep law enforcement from injecting ketamine into you on a whim as you are to keep law enforcement from being able to search your person or your car. With "There has to be a reason it took half a dozen people to hold him down," the reaction justifies itself.
Pretty much everywhere in the world, paramedics are allowed to inject sedatives when treating a patient. Ketamine is used in many places (the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Austria) by paramedics, because it is very safe relative to other sedatives. So the main concern should whether or not police are ordering EMS to administer it when it is not actually required (police do not administer it themselves), since I don't think administering it after an arrest should be an issue if it is actually required.
The article doesn't really give much evidence that this actually happens very frequently. The main piece of evidence is this:
In Minneapolis, a report conducted by the Office of Police Conduct Review found eight of those cases between 2016 and 2018, ranging from officers requesting paramedics use the drug to emergency medical workers asking officers for their opinions on sedating someone.
8 cases across three years in one city, where some of those cases were just paramedics asking for a second opinion, does not seem to indicate a very widespread issue across the US, especially when the city being investigated is know to have a bad police department.
Paramedics here are only allowed to do so if a doctor is not available and there is an emergency waranting using medication. After giving such medication, close monitoring and hospitalisation is mandatory, except if the physician arrives in time and releases the patient (which is very rare in such circumstances). The article never talks about a doctor arriving, an EKG, hospitalisation or any other appropriate measures, from which I conclude that there were none. Which is unconsciable, ketamine isn't "just an aspirin".
8 cases across three years in one city, where some of those cases were just paramedics asking for a second opinion, does not seem to indicate a very widespread issue across the US, especially when the city being investigated is know to have a bad police department.
First of all, it's a big jump from "the article only mentions 8 cases across the US" to "there were only 8 cases across the US". The case of Elijah McClain, for instance, is in Denver.
And the issue seems to be one of cruel and unusual punishment. At least in the US, people expect the police to use and carry guns. They don't expect them to order paramedics to inject you with weird sedatives when you're under restraint, and especially not to make broadly reasonable decisions while doing so.
Look at the McClain case, he was 140 pounds with six officers restraining him, and they needed to inject ketamine? I wouldn't blame the paramedics for miscalculating the weight, they probably thought this was some enormous muscular man that six police officers couldn't hold down.
I agree that this is something that should never happen at all, but you're hyperbolizing the parent's statement. They didn't say there are only 8 cases in the US, they said it's uncommon.
Taking Minneapolis as an average (parent believes they are worse than average), it happens to .00063% of the population there per year or 1890 Americans per year. I'm having trouble finding the arrest rate in Minneapolis, which would help get to a more accurate estimate.
> First of all, it's a big jump from "the article only mentions 8 cases across the US" to "there were only 8 cases across the US".
The parent does not make that jump, it merely cites 8 cases over 3 years in one city and asks if there isn't more evidence. And that does not even allege police directing paramedics to do things (as claimed in another thread here), just people discussing the situation with each other.
> Ketamine is used in many places (the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Austria) by paramedics,
The original claim did not say anything about police. You interjected police. However, I searched for "australia paramedics using ketamine" in DDG. The first page was nothing but pages regarding Colorado. Page 2 returned a more relevant study of Australian paramedics using Special-K[0]. I then searched "canadian paramedics using ketamine", and again first page totally about CO with page 2 yielding relevant results[1].
If you want the evidence that this happens frequently read the MPD civilian oversight report[0] on the subject.
In my opinion the main issue is the "excited delirium" diagnosis. One of the main symptoms of "excited delirium" is "Police Noncompliance"[1] which makes the police an essential part of its diagnosis.
> Pretty much everywhere in the world, paramedics are allowed to inject sedatives when treating a patient.
I don't know how you define pretty much everywhere, but in the EU it's illegal pretty much everywhere. [0]
I know in practice those laws get ignored, but, as a paramedic or doctor, you could get into trouble if someone decides to sue over it. The reality is that the law isn't on your side on this issue.
> He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he was only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams.
315 milligrams is still.. a lot. Especially injected into the bloodstream (I presume?) all at one time. Enough to really wrangle your marbles even if you're used to that kind of stuff.
edit: To expand, that's about the dosage most people would get delusions of some sort, but not be 100% immobilized. That is a recipe for disaster around angry cops.
edit2: It's bio-availability is actually twice as high intramuscularilly than insufflated.. well you wouldn't be fighting the cops but dear god I would not want to experience that.
I’ve seen club kids go into what I can only describe as an ‘ambulatory trance state’ at the dosage levels you speak of.
I talked down one or two people from completely destroying their environment while in such a state, by using deliberately de-escalatory calming techniques.
I’m aghast the police would use such a substance because it is indeed a recipe for disaster when mixed with their expectations of behavior.
People taking ketamine in clubs usually use much less than k-hole or anaesthetic doses, because the effects are more conducive to partying. They generally take small bumps over the course of a night.
I really doubt the club kids to saw had taken anything like the equivelant of 300mg or 500mg taken IM (2x the bioavailability of intranasal), or even intranasally. If you are standing, 50-75mg taken intranasally can cause transient, trance-like states like you describe. 100mg taken intranasally (50g IM equivalent) is enough such that most people couldn't safely walk, and would have closed-eye visuals almost like a lucid dream. 150mg intranasally will guarantee a k-hole for most people, and 300mg plus would render all but those with extreme tolerances unconscious.
> 315 milligrams is still.. a lot. Especially injected into the bloodstream (I presume?)
Iv dose for induction of general anesthesia is ~3-5 mg/kg. Or ~5 mg/kg intramuscularly.
The main thing with ketamine is that it causes tachycardia/arrhythmias and increases blood pressure. While that can be desirable for people in shock, it is a big problem if the person is already under proarrhythmic drugs (e.g. cocaine).
In Europe, we use antipsychotics for similar situations (haloperidol).
I’m pretty sure the lit goes up to 8 mg/kg for IM. In the case of a 100lb pt, that’s what, 50kg? So they give the pt 6 mg per kg. It’s not out of the range of sanity, all else equal.
Key point though: you wouldn’t give the pt 8 mg/kg in a fucking bolus. Time to onset for sedative effect is fast (10min or so); time to peripheral adverse effects can easily take an hour. You’d start way lower than 8, and work your way up if you needed to.
I would be really surprised if they estimated this poorly and would guess they were just irritated by him and decided to up the dose as punishment. If I am wrong then they receive zero training when estimating weight and multiple officers are terrible at it. To mistakenly confuse a 140lb for 220lb is poor judgement to the point that it strains credulity.
The uncomfortable truth is that authorities regularly misidentify black men as being bigger/taller/older/darker than they actually are. Whether that's an issue specific to police indoctrination or to American culture in general, it's clearly part of what happened here.
Apologies to the HN users who will be incensed at the notion of race playing a role in this situation.
I know how much I weigh, but I don't know how much anyone else weighs. I guess some other people don't even weigh themselves so don't even know how much they weigh.
If you are resisting arrest, you may still be presumed innocent of the original crime. However you're almost certainly guilty of resisting lawful arrest, which is usually a misdemeanor.
There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest.
This is not to say that injection sounds like a great solution for everyday arrests.
> I can’t breathe. I have my ID right here. My name is Elijah McClain. That’s my house. I was just going home. I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all. I’m so sorry. I have no gun. I don’t do that stuff. I don’t do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don’t even kill flies! I don’t eat meat! But I don’t judge people, I don’t judge people who do eat meat. Forgive me. All I was trying to do was become better. I will do it. I will do anything. Sacrifice my identity, I’ll do it. You all are phenomenal. You are beautiful and I love you. Try to forgive me. I’m a mood Gemini. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Ow, that really hurt. You are all very strong. Teamwork makes the dream work. Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to do that. I just can’t breathe correctly.
In america if the police are killing you, resisting that death is a crime. If someone had attempted to stop the police from killing George Floyd, they would have been arrested and charged.
You can imagine the confusion that arises when plain clothes police seize people.
> There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest.
It's a bit murkier than that in the US. In some states you can't even resist unlawful arrest, but in all states you're allowed to defend yourself against _excessive_ force.
In practice that's probably a bad idea, but if you survive the retaliation from somebody who's armed and who has already proven themselves prone to excessive use of force then you might win the ensuing court case.
Alas, when someone is or is not "resisting arrest" is not something that is particularly well-defined. It's usually "when the officer says you are resisting," regardless of the actual facts at hand.
My point, basically, is that if a cop grabs you unexpectedly, and you push them away (a reasonable, normal reaction): the next thing you hear is "stop resisting!"
Of course, the definition of "lawful arrest" is pretty flexible these days and can seemingly include arrests that are blatantly unlawful, like some cops deciding to assault a random passerby on the street because they don't like the look of them or are unhappy about legal conduct like photography. Is it okay to resist under those circumstances? According to a judge or a police officer, probably not, but at the end of the day you'd probably win the case. If you survive.
Thankfully we don't use "almost certainly guilty" as the criminal standard in the US. So, you're still injecting an innocent person with drugs to detain them.
In an ideal world, sedation is more humane than beating or shocking a suspect into submission, when there is no other way to get them under control.
If I and other HN commenters are not mistaken, ketamine is commonly used for this purpose in hospitals around the world.
However, leaving the theoretical behind... Elijah McClain was murdered by police for the "crime" of acting oddly. There was no reason for them to use force against him whatsoever. He was unarmed and committed no crime.
His death hurts me because he was, broadly speaking, "one of us" - an eccentric and intelligent person.
Based on all I have read about his life, I think many HN readers would recognize aspects of themselves in Elijah.
The common scenario is someone being arrested who is also is a state of excited/agitated delirium. Someone in that state will likely be combative but won't be able to comply with directions. Your only options would be to physically restrain the individual (which might be very difficult to virtually impossible depending on what you have on hand and how agitated the person is) or sedate them. The article implies that police are coercing paramedics into giving ketamine. I'm pretty skeptical of this. Any delirious person being treated by paramedics would be on the way to the ER for evaluation. The cops and the paramedics would be working together to ensure that the patient is safely restrained/sedated. But the paramedic would in essence be taking over control of the patient (likely with a police escort to the ER).
I have no clue, the first time I read about ketamine was in a article [1] about upcoming partydrugs in The Netherlands. In that article they mention that ketamine is generally used as a anesthetic for horses. But having things done to your body while you cannot decide about that is just horrible and should be banned.
There are some good uses cases . You arrive on scene and the patient is injured and agitated and lashing out. EMT is having a hard time as well. You need to give them something. Basically Benzos or Ketamine, and Ketamine is much safer and can relieve pain
I always had the impression that emergency departments used haloperidol or chlorpromazine because they don't cause increased intracranial pressure like ketamine nor respiratory depression like benzodiazepines. I'm sure it varies for individual experience.
If a suspect is restrained enough to be injected with a needle, then the police have already overpowered them. If an EMT has not judged that a sedative will medically help their patient, the right answer for the police is hand and ankle cuffs. Ordering administration of a sedative is purely for the officers' own desires - to make their jobs easier in the future and to extra-judicially punish.
Police forcing people to do drugs. People that can't refuse it. Is revolting and insane, and distroys any possibility of fair defense of course. What would be next, escopolamine by default in any declaration?
Setting aside the fact that this kind of thing happens at all: How is ketamine the drug of choice?! Although it has a very high active dose:fatal dose (alluded to in other comments), accepted practice for "chemical restraint" is Thorazine+Valium (or equivalent); ketamine is basically never used for behavioral "sedation" by any medical professional.
The use of chemical restraint in a law enforcement setting is an appalling breach of human rights, but ketamine is by far the safest option in an out-of-hospital setting, especially when you don't have any sort of patient history. I'm sure that someone has been killed by a single clinical dose of ketamine, but I'm not sure how. Ketamine isn't a very good chemical cosh, but at least it's a safe one.
Anyone administering chlorpromazine and a benzodiazepine in this setting is criminally negligent - if the "patient" (and I very much hesitate to use that word in this context) has taken another CNS depressant, they're in deep trouble.
It’s a candidate for safest only if it’s being used where required by a trained administrator. And those two factors probably outweigh the choice of drug in their effect on lethality.
Ketamine is also a CNS depressant and would have the same compounding effect when mixed with alcohol, it's a wholly inappropriate drug to administer to someone who was in a state of "alcohol-induced excited delirium"
Our Ed takedown drug is midazolam. I can’t see benzos being safe being given by non-medics. The safety profile of ketamine is excellent (as I’m sure you know)
Having said that it blows my mind that it is considered necessary or appropriate to give someone ketamine to restrain them.
The amount of opioids on the streets of the US (and elsewhere) is staggering. Many people are on a cocktail of different street drugs (meth + heroine where I live). You don't want to be adding a benzo like valium to someone who has opioids in their system due to respiratory depression.
It's completely insane that, in America, police are allowed to direct paramedics to inject a person with _anything_. Anesthesiologists go through how many years of schooling and training? And even then, nobody is injecting kids with shit on the street.
I was first confused when I learned about the McClain story; I had known Ketamine to be a recreational drug, and i had never heard of cops injecting something into a person they were arresting before. Since I have become better educated, I am much more concerned about staying in America long-term. This is not how normal law enforcement should be operating.
The cops didn't "legally" direct the injection. The don't have the authority to do that. In my opinion (as a paramedic), that makes the compliance of the medics with the cops request even more disgusting.
Sedation (even involuntary sedation) is an important tool for EMS (outside the context of law enforcement). It was used totally inappropriately here, and everyone involved should be facing criminal charges.
I dislocated my ankle rock climbing a few years ago and had to be taken to the hospital. After a few doses of morphine had zero noticeable impact on my pain, they gave me ketamine so I couldn't feel the pain of the reduction (aka pulling my foot out and moving it back into place).
The ketamine experience was far worse than my fall and any subsequent pain I experienced, and I would gladly take the pain of the reduction over the ketamine any day. It basically felt like I was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Think of the hypnosis scene from "Get Out" where you can feel your consciousness slipping away but you're not asleep either. I could hear everything happening around me but couldn't move a muscle or feel anything. My perception of time went out the window and it felt like I was in an empty void for an eternity when it was only a few minutes.
I thought I couldn't talk because I couldn't feel my mouth or move any other muscles, but realized I was actually speaking my thoughts after I heard a friend in the room responded to something I thought in my mind.
Overall, 0/10 would not do it again and the thought that police use it to pacify someone during an arrest is sickening.
I imagine there's also got to be a difference between getting it for a planned surgery that you can prepare for, vs having it thrust on you suddenly during a traumatic and painful experience. Kind of hard to let go in that situation.
Regarding place attention on the positive: Check out Sam Harris interview with Francoise Bourzat. She goes into depth about so called negative trips and feels they are just as important and useful as positive ones. I'm not sure I can summarize why, but she suggested that even negative experiences can be mindfully approached and handled well.
Are you experienced with drugs? Because most of my friends think ketamine is one the greatest drugs you can do. It would have probably a lot more fun if you were in a comfortable place, like your house, hanging out with your gf or something.
Some of the most chill and relaxed moments of my entire life have been on ketamine. I only do it occasionally because of the nasty chronic side-effects, though.
Nope, not experienced and don't plan to be. I totally believe it could be a nice experience in a different setting, but I doubt that experiencing it in the hospital or mid-arrest would ever be enjoyable.
Do your friends generally take drugs involuntarily and without informed awareness of the effects and without a trusted trip sitter the first time they do something new and with associated negative circumstances (like a broken bone or an arrest)?
Accidentally doing too much ketamine and badly k-holing (by snorting) is one of the worst experiences of my life. Maybe the worst. It was exactly as you described, it's like you're being cut off from reality and have no way back. It's like being plunged into the bottom of the ocean, darkness, everything real is distant, you try to move but you can't - it's like someone has unplugged all your sensory organs and limbs.
And it comes in waves -- just when you think you're coming out of it, it pulls you back down.
I swore off ketamine for life after that and don't plan on ever touching it again. I would take a bad comedown from stimulants over that. I would take the feeling of hopelessness, anhedonia, and thorough depression from a bad MDMA comedown any day. To be fair, both things only happen if you do too much, it's avoidable, and it was entirely my fault for not weighing the dose.
And I still think therapeutic ketamine for depression should be studied and trialled and legal. But still, K-holing was an absolutely horrifying experience and I don't recommend it to anyone for any reason.
And it probably was only not even worse because I was also on MDMA.
It can be absolutely wonderful if you're properly prepared though, just lying in your bed with a dim pink light on listening to Carbon Based Lifeforms or something, enjoying escaping your body for a while and floating around in an undefinable sea of warm nothingness.
However, it absolutely sounds like it could be hell if you're not prepared though - especially in police custody, but even just fighting against it in a party situation where you want to exist and be social could be problematic.
> My perception of time went out the window and it felt like I was in an empty void for an eternity when it was only a few minutes.
This was my exact experience with disossiatives as well. I think they can be effectively and safely used, but there's a real danger there. Disossiatives like ketamine and DXM are incredibly powerful.
After my experience in that same eternal void I struggled with a fear that what I'd experienced was the natural state of consciousness, and what would happen to me for eternity after I died. I didn't actually believe it, but the fear was still there and talk. Took a few months for it to wear off.
I had almost exactly the same response the first time I took ketamine. This is despite being experienced with psychedelics (all extremely positive lifechanging experiences), and despite that I was safe at home, knowing what I was taking. The only problem was that I was in a bad state of mind.
It is truly disturbing to imagine going through that during an arrest, with no idea what is happening
I've dislocated my shoulder four times this year. The last three I've asked them to stop knocking me out w/ketamine for the reasons you describe, and just put it back while I scream; which I find quite preferable.
As a youth I did all the drugs and hallucinogens there are and most of them are _nothing_ compared to an anesthetic dose of ketamine. It's the most disassociate experience I've ever had. It feels like you're grasping at your consciousness but can't quite get hold. The hallucinations are incomprehensible. I was told my screaming was heard in the waiting room.
Yes this is commmonly known as a K-Hole. It's worse than a bad trip from what I've heard.
Ketamine is a party drug especially common among young gay people here in Brazil. It's usually briefly inhaled so I'm guessing very low doses. The 500mg mentioned in the article sounds terrible.
Sounds terrible. In a recent surgery in pre op they gave me Versed/Midazolam. I was so spacey it was weird and kinda scary. I can’t imagine what ketamine would be like
Versed is pretty wild, even at preinduction doses. You can learn to be OK with it, but it was a little scary for me too, the first time I had a procedure that involved it.
That procedure also most likely involved ketamine - I don't know for sure, it was a long time ago and nobody told me the names of anything but the Versed and that only because I asked, but I had totally uncharacteristic recurring nightmares and emotional problems for the next little while afterward. When all of that came back up during planning for the surgery I had to have last year, my surgeon noted that that sounded in his experience like ketamine side effects, and that this time I'd be getting propofol, which is not at all a dissociative, instead. And, sure enough, I was just fine after that surgery, despite it being much more invasive and thus painful in its aftereffects.
Based on that, I'll echo what others here have already said: the thought of being given a surprise high dose of ketamine, in the context of a situation that also involves the use of violence against one's person, is horrifying, and complex PTSD is the least severe consequence I can imagine.
Yep, I think the empty void feeling was only a few minutes and after that ended it took like 20-30 minutes to be able to open my eyes and regain motor control.
Readit News
There are other types of scenarios where out of control cops bully doctors and nurses into doing illegal things, two that I have read about:
- forcing a suspect to be subject to anal cavity search by a doctor at a hospital after a traffic stop
- forcing hospital staff to run blood tests on an awake, non-consenting suspect
Everyone who has ever dealt with the medical world for a personal or family problem understands that there are few “sure things” and that something that worked miraculously for someone’s problem might not work for yours, even if they seem like the same problem. Allowing police a position to direct medical care is utterly outrageous and irresponsible.
That said, what was done to Elijah McCain is one of the sickest, most unacceptably fucked up nightmare scenarios I’ve ever heard of. The initial interaction was a result of racist police who then had their victim murdered because they never saw him as a person, just another potential criminal.
She was arrested, although not charged and was later apologized to. The cop was fired and it also lead to Utah changing its blood draw laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_University_of_Utah_Hospit...
This is the behavior I’d expect from a serial killer.
Edit: they then distributed or showed this photo to the rest of the precinct. We know because a whistleblower notified the media. To my eye, this means that they expected the rest of the precinct to approve of this behavior, which is extremely alarming.
What compels someone to do that?
Yes, they're police in the United States...
Dead Comment
That being said, sedation is an important tool, and often the safest course of action for a patient that would otherwise be a danger to themselves or others. A prolonged fight can be fatal for someone who is pushing their body further than it should go.
It definitely has to be done correctly though, and given the number of cases where it was very clearly done incorrectly, I do think changes need to be made.
The mindset that permits people to shrug off the killing of Elijah McClain, and assume he must have done something to deserve it, is the same that celebrated public lynchings.
Also, there's no mention in this article of police directing the paramedics to do anything. Can you point me to what gave you that idea?
This is the kind of rationalization that gets policies like this instituted. Having to be held down by six people isn't a requirement for being diagnosed with "excided delirium," anything is sufficient, because it's not a falsifiable diagnosis. The look in someone's eye can be enough. Talking back can be enough.
Also, by "enough," I mean enough for people who are already reactionaries of the law and order type to rationalize it. If it happened to a hypothetical white guy in some office complaining about his tax bill (who also showed no aggression and only tested positive for trace amounts of marijuana), could you imagine that people would still be alluding to "some reason" why "excited delirium" was actually a cool and reasonable diagnosis?
I mean, this is a violinist massage therapist who volunteered at animal shelters. This event is just more evidence that video will neither save you nor avenge you. You're as likely to be able to keep law enforcement from injecting ketamine into you on a whim as you are to keep law enforcement from being able to search your person or your car. With "There has to be a reason it took half a dozen people to hold him down," the reaction justifies itself.
No one has said that. You are fabricating.
The article doesn't really give much evidence that this actually happens very frequently. The main piece of evidence is this:
In Minneapolis, a report conducted by the Office of Police Conduct Review found eight of those cases between 2016 and 2018, ranging from officers requesting paramedics use the drug to emergency medical workers asking officers for their opinions on sedating someone.
8 cases across three years in one city, where some of those cases were just paramedics asking for a second opinion, does not seem to indicate a very widespread issue across the US, especially when the city being investigated is know to have a bad police department.
Deleted Comment
First of all, it's a big jump from "the article only mentions 8 cases across the US" to "there were only 8 cases across the US". The case of Elijah McClain, for instance, is in Denver.
And the issue seems to be one of cruel and unusual punishment. At least in the US, people expect the police to use and carry guns. They don't expect them to order paramedics to inject you with weird sedatives when you're under restraint, and especially not to make broadly reasonable decisions while doing so.
Look at the McClain case, he was 140 pounds with six officers restraining him, and they needed to inject ketamine? I wouldn't blame the paramedics for miscalculating the weight, they probably thought this was some enormous muscular man that six police officers couldn't hold down.
Taking Minneapolis as an average (parent believes they are worse than average), it happens to .00063% of the population there per year or 1890 Americans per year. I'm having trouble finding the arrest rate in Minneapolis, which would help get to a more accurate estimate.
The parent does not make that jump, it merely cites 8 cases over 3 years in one city and asks if there isn't more evidence. And that does not even allege police directing paramedics to do things (as claimed in another thread here), just people discussing the situation with each other.
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Also, I googled “Canada” and “Australia” alone with “Ketamine” “police” and got nothing. Can you support your claim that other countries do this?
The original claim did not say anything about police. You interjected police. However, I searched for "australia paramedics using ketamine" in DDG. The first page was nothing but pages regarding Colorado. Page 2 returned a more relevant study of Australian paramedics using Special-K[0]. I then searched "canadian paramedics using ketamine", and again first page totally about CO with page 2 yielding relevant results[1].
[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1742-6723.12... [1] https://ajp.paramedics.org/index.php/ajp/article/view/763
Original claim seems accurate.
Firstly, eliminate qualified immunity in the USA. Until everyone can be held accountable for their actions, this convo is moot.
In my opinion the main issue is the "excited delirium" diagnosis. One of the main symptoms of "excited delirium" is "Police Noncompliance"[1] which makes the police an essential part of its diagnosis.
[0] https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/File/1853/Pre-Hospit...
[1] https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/acep_repo...
I don't know how you define pretty much everywhere, but in the EU it's illegal pretty much everywhere. [0]
I know in practice those laws get ignored, but, as a paramedic or doctor, you could get into trouble if someone decides to sue over it. The reality is that the law isn't on your side on this issue.
[0] https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/chafea_pdb/assets/files/pdb/200...
315 milligrams is still.. a lot. Especially injected into the bloodstream (I presume?) all at one time. Enough to really wrangle your marbles even if you're used to that kind of stuff.
edit: To expand, that's about the dosage most people would get delusions of some sort, but not be 100% immobilized. That is a recipe for disaster around angry cops.
edit2: It's bio-availability is actually twice as high intramuscularilly than insufflated.. well you wouldn't be fighting the cops but dear god I would not want to experience that.
I talked down one or two people from completely destroying their environment while in such a state, by using deliberately de-escalatory calming techniques.
I’m aghast the police would use such a substance because it is indeed a recipe for disaster when mixed with their expectations of behavior.
I really doubt the club kids to saw had taken anything like the equivelant of 300mg or 500mg taken IM (2x the bioavailability of intranasal), or even intranasally. If you are standing, 50-75mg taken intranasally can cause transient, trance-like states like you describe. 100mg taken intranasally (50g IM equivalent) is enough such that most people couldn't safely walk, and would have closed-eye visuals almost like a lucid dream. 150mg intranasally will guarantee a k-hole for most people, and 300mg plus would render all but those with extreme tolerances unconscious.
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Iv dose for induction of general anesthesia is ~3-5 mg/kg. Or ~5 mg/kg intramuscularly.
The main thing with ketamine is that it causes tachycardia/arrhythmias and increases blood pressure. While that can be desirable for people in shock, it is a big problem if the person is already under proarrhythmic drugs (e.g. cocaine).
In Europe, we use antipsychotics for similar situations (haloperidol).
Key point though: you wouldn’t give the pt 8 mg/kg in a fucking bolus. Time to onset for sedative effect is fast (10min or so); time to peripheral adverse effects can easily take an hour. You’d start way lower than 8, and work your way up if you needed to.
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But yes, it’s a lot.
Apologies to the HN users who will be incensed at the notion of race playing a role in this situation.
I know how much I weigh, but I don't know how much anyone else weighs. I guess some other people don't even weigh themselves so don't even know how much they weigh.
How do you estimate it?
There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest.
This is not to say that injection sounds like a great solution for everyday arrests.
> I can’t breathe. I have my ID right here. My name is Elijah McClain. That’s my house. I was just going home. I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all. I’m so sorry. I have no gun. I don’t do that stuff. I don’t do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don’t even kill flies! I don’t eat meat! But I don’t judge people, I don’t judge people who do eat meat. Forgive me. All I was trying to do was become better. I will do it. I will do anything. Sacrifice my identity, I’ll do it. You all are phenomenal. You are beautiful and I love you. Try to forgive me. I’m a mood Gemini. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Ow, that really hurt. You are all very strong. Teamwork makes the dream work. Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to do that. I just can’t breathe correctly.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elijah-mcclains-last-words...
You can imagine the confusion that arises when plain clothes police seize people.
It's a bit murkier than that in the US. In some states you can't even resist unlawful arrest, but in all states you're allowed to defend yourself against _excessive_ force.
In practice that's probably a bad idea, but if you survive the retaliation from somebody who's armed and who has already proven themselves prone to excessive use of force then you might win the ensuing court case.
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Alas, when someone is or is not "resisting arrest" is not something that is particularly well-defined. It's usually "when the officer says you are resisting," regardless of the actual facts at hand.
My point, basically, is that if a cop grabs you unexpectedly, and you push them away (a reasonable, normal reaction): the next thing you hear is "stop resisting!"
The crime of "resisting arrest" needs to go away.
Interesting reading: https://bostonreview.net/race-law-justice/lisa-cacho-jodi-me...
If I and other HN commenters are not mistaken, ketamine is commonly used for this purpose in hospitals around the world.
However, leaving the theoretical behind... Elijah McClain was murdered by police for the "crime" of acting oddly. There was no reason for them to use force against him whatsoever. He was unarmed and committed no crime.
His death hurts me because he was, broadly speaking, "one of us" - an eccentric and intelligent person.
Based on all I have read about his life, I think many HN readers would recognize aspects of themselves in Elijah.
[1] https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/ketamine-steeds-populairder-gro... (Dutch)
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Anyone administering chlorpromazine and a benzodiazepine in this setting is criminally negligent - if the "patient" (and I very much hesitate to use that word in this context) has taken another CNS depressant, they're in deep trouble.
Adding a bento, like valium, to that mix is extremely dangerous because of the synergistic effect on respiratory depression.
Having said that it blows my mind that it is considered necessary or appropriate to give someone ketamine to restrain them.
I was first confused when I learned about the McClain story; I had known Ketamine to be a recreational drug, and i had never heard of cops injecting something into a person they were arresting before. Since I have become better educated, I am much more concerned about staying in America long-term. This is not how normal law enforcement should be operating.
Sedation (even involuntary sedation) is an important tool for EMS (outside the context of law enforcement). It was used totally inappropriately here, and everyone involved should be facing criminal charges.
The ketamine experience was far worse than my fall and any subsequent pain I experienced, and I would gladly take the pain of the reduction over the ketamine any day. It basically felt like I was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Think of the hypnosis scene from "Get Out" where you can feel your consciousness slipping away but you're not asleep either. I could hear everything happening around me but couldn't move a muscle or feel anything. My perception of time went out the window and it felt like I was in an empty void for an eternity when it was only a few minutes.
I thought I couldn't talk because I couldn't feel my mouth or move any other muscles, but realized I was actually speaking my thoughts after I heard a friend in the room responded to something I thought in my mind.
Overall, 0/10 would not do it again and the thought that police use it to pacify someone during an arrest is sickening.
I had ketamine during wakeful surgery.
Loved it. Grateful it was available.
But I had prev. experience w/ psychedelics & had learned/practiced how to: let go, place attention on what's positive & cease to have expectations.
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Some of the most chill and relaxed moments of my entire life have been on ketamine. I only do it occasionally because of the nasty chronic side-effects, though.
And it comes in waves -- just when you think you're coming out of it, it pulls you back down.
I swore off ketamine for life after that and don't plan on ever touching it again. I would take a bad comedown from stimulants over that. I would take the feeling of hopelessness, anhedonia, and thorough depression from a bad MDMA comedown any day. To be fair, both things only happen if you do too much, it's avoidable, and it was entirely my fault for not weighing the dose.
And I still think therapeutic ketamine for depression should be studied and trialled and legal. But still, K-holing was an absolutely horrifying experience and I don't recommend it to anyone for any reason.
And it probably was only not even worse because I was also on MDMA.
However, it absolutely sounds like it could be hell if you're not prepared though - especially in police custody, but even just fighting against it in a party situation where you want to exist and be social could be problematic.
This was my exact experience with disossiatives as well. I think they can be effectively and safely used, but there's a real danger there. Disossiatives like ketamine and DXM are incredibly powerful.
After my experience in that same eternal void I struggled with a fear that what I'd experienced was the natural state of consciousness, and what would happen to me for eternity after I died. I didn't actually believe it, but the fear was still there and talk. Took a few months for it to wear off.
It is truly disturbing to imagine going through that during an arrest, with no idea what is happening
As a youth I did all the drugs and hallucinogens there are and most of them are _nothing_ compared to an anesthetic dose of ketamine. It's the most disassociate experience I've ever had. It feels like you're grasping at your consciousness but can't quite get hold. The hallucinations are incomprehensible. I was told my screaming was heard in the waiting room.
Ketamine is a party drug especially common among young gay people here in Brazil. It's usually briefly inhaled so I'm guessing very low doses. The 500mg mentioned in the article sounds terrible.
That procedure also most likely involved ketamine - I don't know for sure, it was a long time ago and nobody told me the names of anything but the Versed and that only because I asked, but I had totally uncharacteristic recurring nightmares and emotional problems for the next little while afterward. When all of that came back up during planning for the surgery I had to have last year, my surgeon noted that that sounded in his experience like ketamine side effects, and that this time I'd be getting propofol, which is not at all a dissociative, instead. And, sure enough, I was just fine after that surgery, despite it being much more invasive and thus painful in its aftereffects.
Based on that, I'll echo what others here have already said: the thought of being given a surprise high dose of ketamine, in the context of a situation that also involves the use of violence against one's person, is horrifying, and complex PTSD is the least severe consequence I can imagine.
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> Think of the hypnosis scene from "Get Out"
this is EXACTLY right.
> an empty void for an eternity when it was only a few minutes.
if you maintained the ability to interpret audio and visual inputs, then probably 20-30 minutes, if SWIM had to guess.
> the thought that police use it to pacify someone during an arrest is sickening.
this is EXACTLY right.
reminds me of the psychonaught/rapist sex therapist guy who was mega-dosing women with MDMA or 2CB before forcing himself on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X4PUwrq8tA (NSFW, maybe... but very troubling either way)