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Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

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Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#301

Post by john_moscow »

throwanem wrote: post #278
john_moscow wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May you share some details on that, because, with all due respect, it sounds unrealistic. Unless you've omitted some big piece of the puzzle.

Sure, I don't mind; it was something like 15 years ago anyway, and obviously didn't amount to anything in the first place. Baltimore PD officers wear black uniforms. One night one of them was standing in the middle of the street I was driving down, and there weren't enough streetlights in that section. I was doing something like 40 in a 30, and the first thing I knew that anything was wrong was when I heard a loud th…

Thanks for sharing your story. I truly wonder through, how much was it about your skin color vs.:

1. The professional attire and the fact that you pulled over and apologized.

2. The cop being busy with something else that's more important than busting a random pothead.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#302

Post by antioink »

kepler1 wrote: post #286

I guess most people here have never been in public safety or law enforcement. The number of drug-addled, violent, danger-to-themselves-and-others people encountered in the US is unusually high and increasing. This is compounded by the inability (right now) of the justice system to either put them into either suitable treatment programs (with mandatory detention, essentially) or incarcerate them (a gradual but steady…

> The number of drug-addled, violent, danger-to-themselves-and-others people encountered in the US is unusually high and increasing.

The police have increased their recruitment numbers in recent years, yes.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#303

Post by honksillet »

axaxs wrote: post #3

Why are we injecting people during arrests, which by definition are not yet guilty people? Even if nobody had died, this is absurd.

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).

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#304

Post by kuzimoto »

ezoe wrote: post #289

Wow. Another reason I will never set my foot on US jurisdiction. It's just too dangerous. The law doesn't exist at all.

The vast majority of people in the US go throughout their entire lives having perfectly normal interactions with the police. This does not represent "normal" police behavior.

> The law doesn't exist at all.

This is just hyperbole. I bet you can find cases of police behaving poorly in any country.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#305

Post by Natsu »

pessimizer wrote: post #253
Natsu wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, we'll see when it's examined in court. I see no reason to assume that these particular cops overreacted, either, but yet here we are.

And for what it's worth, the reason could be that they overreacted--everything has a reason and I made no claims about what reasons that might be.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#306

Post by honksillet »

ak39 wrote: post #64
nerdbaggy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, but drugs should only be administered by suitably trained and educated professionals such as EMT and health care professionals. Not police!

It wasn't the police who gave the med. It was paramedics.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#307

Post by person1234 »

wonnage wrote: post #295
kepler1 wrote: post #286

I guess most people here have never been in public safety or law enforcement. The number of drug-addled, violent, danger-to-themselves-and-others people encountered in the US is unusually high and increasing. This is compounded by the inability (right now) of the justice system to either put them into either suitable treatment programs (with mandatory detention, essentially) or incarcerate them (a gradual but steady…

Violent crime has been on a decades-long decline.

That statistic specifically refers to violent crime. The original poster is referring to mental illness and drug usage.

They are correct that occurrences of mental illness have increased over time: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190315110908.h...

As well as overall drug usage (one way to measure is via overdoses): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db329.htm

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#308

Post by dividedbyzero »

throwawayWSQA wrote: post #247
dividedbyzero wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And cops use bullets, too. Soldiers use even better bullets, and these are a super effective method of disciplining people with great longterm success in reducing repeat offenders. But the cost on the detainee (who is to be presumed innocent, who may be in distress themself, who may have a psychotic episode due to some unknown cross-reaction with medication or the like, who may be deeply scared) is much, much, much h…

1. "Soldiers use even better bullets" Almost universally not true. The Geneva convention prohibits many types of bullets that are allowed for civilian use. Hollow points, for example. And there are good reasons why they're allowed for civilians and not war. 2. It's not fair to give us a sanctimonious lecture about how great your country's police procedures are without stating your country. Put up, or drop the lecture…

I believe soldiers have bullets with a lot more kinetic energy behind them than bullets fired by ordinary police guns; that said, I'm not a gun person, so maybe a police small arms shot is more effective against people than one fired by an assault rifle.

Besides, the policy I described is what (AFAIK) most of Europe implements at the moment (might be all of Europe even), including Germany. I don't quite see why stating that requires chutzpah.

That wasn't intended as a sanctimonious lecture at all, but since there already is a lot of "nothing less drastic could ever work" in the comments, I thought I'd give an example of another policy that works well. I'm well aware there is no police force or security apparatus without fault, they all get some things wrong (and some are outright atrocious, like in Belarus currently), not trying to make it sound like some EU police service is perfect. I don't know where the US police falls on that spectrum, though reading US news makes it seem like they do have some serious issues currently. This particular policy doesn't exactly help, either.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#309

Post by dylan604 »

sesuximo wrote: post #183
GhostVII wrote: post #132

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 th…

The article says that 17% of uses in Colorado lead to complications. —- Also, I googled “Canada” and “Australia” alone with “Ketamine” “police” and got nothing. Can you support your claim that other countries do this?

> 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].

[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.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#310

Post by pstuart »

kuzimoto wrote: post #304
ezoe wrote: post #289

Wow. Another reason I will never set my foot on US jurisdiction. It's just too dangerous. The law doesn't exist at all.

The vast majority of people in the US go throughout their entire lives having perfectly normal interactions with the police. This does not represent "normal" police behavior. > The law doesn't exist at all. This is just hyperbole. I bet you can find cases of police behaving poorly in any country.

> The vast majority of white people in the US go throughout their entire lives having perfectly normal interactions with the police.

FTFY.

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