Forced drugging of a different kind
I'm a little late on this story. Immigration officials have apparently forced deportees to take psych drugs so they are in pliant condition to be returned to their native countries. The ACLU has filed a motion in federal court to stop authorities from using the practice again. From the Los Angeles Times:
The motion comes after an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified before the Senate last month that 50 immigrants had been given psychotropic drugs against their will over a seven-month period. Thirty-three of them had no previous psychiatric diagnosis.One deportee, a Christian pastor in Riverside, was pinned down in a holding cell in Los Angeles the day before he was scheduled to be flown to his native Indonesia, the ACLU contended in court papers. Another, a Senegalese man, was wrestled down in the aisle of a plane parked at LAX and injected with medication. Those two deportees were in addition to the 50 cited during the Senate hearing.
"The new information shows the government's forcible drugging policy is more widespread than previously suggested," said ACLU attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham.
Comments
Well, the obvious defense, which I predict will win, is this, illegal immigration is a symptom of mental illness and to deny them forced medication would have been to deny them medical care. I don't agree with that position but as we all know, it's really popular now with our own citizens.
Posted by: Sally | October 24, 2007 12:44 PM
And folks without psychiatric labels still live in a bubble in which they think forced psychiatric drugging can't happen to them and is nothing for them to worry about. As states lower their standards for forced treatment, the door is opened for more and more political use of psychiatry in the United States. Wake up people!
Posted by: Alison Hymes | October 25, 2007 09:55 AM