State-Sanctioned Murder Via Ketamine

Cops can kill us with ketamine--legally

News broke Monday that the police officer Nathan Woodyard—who killed Elijah McClain—has been found not guilty of homicide and manslaughter charges by a jury in a legal case that has been going on for years in Colorado. Immediately before his death, McClain was given a fatal dose of ketamine against his will. The paramedics who administered the ketamine will go on trial in a few weeks. But will anyone actually be held accountable for McClain’s death?

The tragic reality is that cops and paramedics across the United States regularly kill people with lethal doses of ketamine—typically 500 milligrams, enough to annihilate just about anyone—and they are actually allowed to do so by law. Although the practice has been temporarily suspended in Colorado, it is still part of police protocol in many states throughout the US. I wrote about this in Drugism. Below is an excerpt from the book about the phenomenon of death by ketamine injection—at the hands of the state, and against one’s will. Statistically, this has likely occurred within the last 48 hours (possibly more than once) somewhere in the country.

The following is an excerpt from p. 214-217 of Chapter 4, “Mystical Medicine, Wicked Weapon: A Both/And Approach to Ketamine” from my new book, Drugism (2022):

State-sanctioned murder with ketamine

One study, published in July 2021, examined more than 11,000 cases in which ketamine was administered to people by emergency personnel outside hospital settings, all from the year 2019 alone. (The actual number of people who received ketamine in such circumstances that year is likely even higher. The study does not claim to be comprehensive in this regard.) Its findings are disturbing, despite its authors’ attempt to downplay the issues which their own data reveals.

For example, the study found that 23% of the people given the drug experienced respiratory complications as a result. A similar study from Colorado which also examined cases of ketamine administration in 2019 found a comparable rate, 24%, of complications from the drug.

In the first-mentioned study, 128 deaths were recorded following the administration of ketamine. Given the total number of cases studied, this represents a rate of slightly more than 1%. For every 88 people administered the drug, 1 died.

In the US, ketamine was administered by force to more than eleven thousand people by emergency personnel and police outside hospital settings in 2019 alone.

And yet the study’s authors work their magic with the numbers and conclude that the ketamine itself was actually only responsible for a mere 8 of the 128 recorded deaths, or 0.07%.  Based on this figure, they insist that patient mortality as a result of ketamine administration is “rare.”

But this 0.07% figure is misleading, as the actual rate of death following ketamine administration was 1.13%. So, what gives? Why does the study seem to minimize both the actual rate and the gravity of death as a result of ketamine administration? If we look, for a moment, at who wrote and published the study, the quagmire reveals itself.

The study was published in Annals of Emergency Medicine, the official journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians, or ACEP. Despite the name, ACEP is not a college, but a lobbying group that advocates for the interests of emergency physicians. Of the seven authors of the study, nearly all of them are current or former emergency physicians. Two of the study’s authors work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the same campus where the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funds research on novel synthetic drugs for use in the military and general population.

For every 88 people administered the drug, 1 died.

The study is not unlike a report released by a police department who, accused of wrongdoing, investigates itself and finds itself innocent. Instead of police officers standing accused and “investigating,” it is emergency physicians. Now, don’t get me wrong—I have absolutely nothing against emergency physicians; quite the opposite. We desperately need them. However, we also need a third party, such as analysts or scholars who have no stake in the issue, to review the data at hand if we are to have serious, objective answers in this situation. More simply, we need accountability.

One of the many people who died in 2019 as a result of ketamine administration was Elijah McClain. It was McClain’s tragic story that propelled the issue into the headlines a year later when his case received media attention in the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality. Well-known and easily available, I will not repeat the heartbreaking details of McClain’s death here, out of respect for his memory and the wellbeing of his family.

Suffice it to say that it involved 500 milligrams of ketamine injected rapidly into the young and entirely innocent McClain. A 500 milligram dose is more than three times what is required to fully anesthetize a 150-pound person. We also learned that when injected too quickly, ketamine is more likely to cause respiratory depression or cardiac arrest. And yet, such large, rapid doses are quite common when the drug is administered during arrests.

McClain was just one of many, many people who have been injected with ketamine during a police encounter. This state-sanctioned crime occurs across the US, from Colorado to Minnesota to South Carolina to Florida. If the above-mentioned studies are accurate, nearly one in four of the people who receive the drug experience respiratory complications as a result. And death is not, despite the American College of Emergency Physicians’ assurance, a rare occurrence.

Deaths from administration of ketamine in arrest scenarios occurred years before McClain and have continued to occur afterward. Even an off-duty deputy police officer has died as a result of ketamine administration during arrest. His name was Willard Truckenmiller, and in May 2016, he was celebrating his 32^nd birthday at a bar in Fort Myers, Florida when he became unruly and was subsequently arrested and given 500 milligrams of ketamine. He suffered two heart attacks and died as a result.

In January 2018, police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, encountered a woman named Jerica Lacour who appeared to be drunk and distressed. They used ketamine to chemically restrain her while verbally taunting her. Lacour, who already had alcohol in her system, experienced respiratory arrest and died shortly thereafter. She was 29 years old, and a mother of five.

In October 2019, the drug was administered to a man in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina named Jamie Britt who was changing his tire at the time. He had reportedly been seen urinating, a crime which evidently is severe enough to warrant death by lethal injection. Police and paramedics arrived and gave him a 500 milligram dose. Britt subsequently experienced respiratory complications and died shortly thereafter.

In September 2020, also in Colorado Springs, police administered a fatal dose of ketamine to a young man whose parents had called for emergency medical help. Hunter Barr was his name, and he was in the midst of an adverse reaction to a combination of LSD and cough syrup he had taken earlier. He was 26.

Earlier that year, in July, a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota called 911 because her boyfriend was having a diabetic seizure. Paramedics arrived and administered glucagon (which, as we learned in Chapter Two, is a hormone that, along with insulin, regulates our glucose levels). They also called police. When the officers arrived, the man was injected with 500 milligrams of ketamine and 20 milligrams of Versed, the brand name for a benzodiazepine also known as midazolam. He had a heart attack, was hospitalized, and later died. His name was Max Johnson.

While the 500 milligram doses given to McClain, Truckenmiller, Britt, Johnson, and others were disturbingly high, paramedics have given even more than that to others. Just four days before McClain met his death, another young man named Elijah was given ketamine during an arrest, also in Colorado. But on this occasion, the man, Elijah McKnight, was given 750 milligrams over the course of multiple injections, just minutes apart, after being tackled and tasered several times.

His crime? He was asleep at a bus stop. Miraculously, McKnight survived, although he did suffer a 3-day long coma in a hospital immediately following his arrest.

In many cases, ketamine has been used under the pretense that the arrestee suffered from something called “excited delirium.” Purportedly a condition in which people become uncontrollably wild and gain “superhuman strength,” “excited delirium” is, frankly, bullshit. It is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, who publish the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which lists every diagnosable mental condition. “Excited delirium” is nothing more than a pseudoscientific excuse for cops to terrorize people.

In July 2021, the state of Colorado halted the use of ketamine in arrests. Two months later, the cops and paramedics who collectively murdered McClain were charged with homicide and manslaughter, among other charges. As of the time of this writing, the case is still ongoing.

Some of the victims and their families have received settlements for these injuries and deaths. But no amount of money will bring any of them back to life, or undo the trauma they and their families have experienced. We should recognize these actions for what they are: state-sponsored crimes. The use of ketamine in arrest scenarios is a flagrant abuse of power, and has most likely occurred at least once as you have read this chapter.