Gitmo residents routinely given psychoactive drug: Study

By Steve Hynd

Not exactly surprising, but shocking even so:

Seton Hall University School of Law�s Center for Policy and Research has issued a report, Drug Abuse? An Exploration of the Government Use of Mefloquine at Guant�mo (PDF) documenting the medically inappropriate use of a dangerous pharmacological treatment on Guant�mo Bay detainees. 

According to the report, the U.S. military routinely administered mefloquine, a controversial malaria treatment, at five times the standard prophylactic dose. Mefloquine, even at the standard dose, is known to cause adverse side effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, aggression, psychotic behavior, memory impairment, convulsions, suicidal ideation and possibly suicide.

The prophylactic dose of mefloquine is 250 mg. On arrival at Guant�mo, as a matter of standard operating procedure, detainees received 1250 mg of mefloquine. The larger dose of mefloquine was administered without taking a patient history of any kind.

Dr. G. Richard Olds, tropical disease specialist and founding Dean of the Medical School of the University of California at Riverside, commented on the long-lasting effects of the drug: �Mefloquine is fat soluble, and as a result, it does build up in the body and has a very long half-life. This is important since a massive dose of this drug is not easily corrected and the �side effects� of the medication could last for weeks or months.�

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, and the U.S. military concedes, that malaria is not a threat in Guant�mo. For that reason, U.S. military personnel and contractors are not prescribed any prophylactic anti-malarial medication. 

�Mefloquine was administered to detainees contrary to medical protocol or purpose,� commented Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Director of the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research. �The record reveals no medical justification for mefloquine in this manner or at these doses. On this record there appears to be only three possible reasons for drugging these men: gross malpractice, human experimentation or �enhanced interrogation.� At best it represents monumental incompetence. At worst, it�s torture.�

One serving member of the US military who was once given a far lower dose of the same drug as part of a study of its effects experienced upsetting symptoms:

I would get sick watching TV. Experienced acute rage. More nausea and vomiting. Acute photophobia. . . . Experienced acute panic attacks that put me in the emergency room 5 times. Wet my bed once. Evening recurring anxiety attacks. Purple halos around objects. Auditory hallucinations. . . . Pneumonitis. . . . Tremors. Inability to walk properly. Acute bout of tremors. Vertigo. . . . Recurring violent three dimensional vertigo (tumbling, not spinning). Had to walk with a cane. Constant arm tremors. Stuttered when I talked.

Others reported hallicinations including animals, "grim reaper" figures and voices. Symptoms onset almost immediately and lasted up to three weeks. The chemical family to which the drug belongs was developed in the 50s and 60s as part of MKULTRA, a US government program of research in behavioral modification.

That such massive doses of mefloquine were given, far beyond the normal dose, cannot be justified medically - especially since the U.S. military has since stopped using it as its malarial drug of choice exactly due to these psycoactive properies even at lower doses. The only conclusion that can be drawn was that the drug was administered as torture.

The law is clear - The relevant statute defines torture as:

�(1) the term �torture� means any act, directed against an individual in the offender�s custody or physical control, by which severe pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering arising only from or inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions), whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on that individual for such purposes as obtaining from that individual or a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual for an act that individual or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind; and �

(2) mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from�

�(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; �

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; �

(C) the threat of imminent death; or �

(D) the threat that another individual will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.�

However, the Obama administration has already decided it will look the other way on all forms of torture carried out at Gitmo, not just waterboarding. The Obama White House even pressured other nations not to take any action against these torturers, forcing them to contravene international law. Thus Obama and his people become accessories after the fact.

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