The Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding". The US military administered the drug despite Pentagon knowledge that mefloquine caused severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and anxiety. The drug was used on the prisoners whether they had malaria or not. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Dec 2, 2010 -
73 comments
The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs. The
Sentencing Project has just released a
report (pdf) finding that, for the first time in 20 years, the
number of Black Americans in state prison for drug offenses has fallen. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of White drug offenders in state prisons rose about 43 percent, while the number of Black offenders declined by 22 percent. One cause may be a rise in the use of
drug courts, which are locally administered programs that divert offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. The Sentencing Project has a recent
report (pdf) on this issue as well.
posted by lunit
on Apr 16, 2009 -
32 comments
