Back in the USSR:
“The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged,” the Post reports.
The drugs? Haldol, which is used with schizophrenia patients. Ativan, a tranquilizer. Cogentin, a muscle relaxer helpful with Parkinson’s patients.
“Haldol gained notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it was often given to political dissidents imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals,” the Post said. Then the story quoted a specialist who pointed out — as if it needed to be pointed out — that giving these drugs to people who are not psychotic “is medically and ethically wrong.”
Often, deportees were given a “cocktail” of all three drugs at once. And they were given the shots many times — in detention, on the runway, on the plane, while changing planes.
Since this morally depraved practice not only violates any sense of decency that we might still have left as a country, but international law as well, it is interesting to note that during plane-changing layovers on the ground in Belgium and France, the nurses were not allowed to give their patients “booster shots.” They had to wait until they were back on a plane.
According to the Post, our government has been discussing deportee drugging for a long time. By the end of the Clinton administration, it had decided that it could be done “only if a federal judge gave permission in advance.”
Even after 9/11, the government was still “wary about drugging detainees.”
But Bush and Cheney rushed to the rescue. In early 2003, “They handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security’s new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.”
The appropriately-named agency, according to an internal policy memo, decided that a detainee “with or without a diagnosed psychiatric condition who displays overt or threatening aggressive behavior… may be considered a combative detainee and can be sedated if appropriate under the circumstances.”
And guess who got to determine what might be considered “combative”?
Today, more than 250 druggings, at least 83 deaths and two lawsuits against the U.S. government later, the rules may have been changed. Or they may not. And by the way, ICE has never asked for a court order.
As if Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib weren’t enough, now we’re taking a page from the bad old Soviet Union. What’s next? Bush and Cheney flying to Myanmar to see how it’s done over there?
