From the Houston Chronicle:
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is exploring ways to use drugs such as Valium to calm people without killing them during riots or other crowd control situations where lethal weapons are inappropriate.
Some critics say the effort violates international treaties and federal laws against chemical weapons, an allegation the military denies.
“It’s a rotten idea to drug rioters,” said Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a chemical and biological weapons watchdog group that is the program’s chief critic. “Beyond being a horrible idea, it’s illegal.”
The Pentagon has long tried to develop nonlethal weapons that would incapacitate or repel people with little risk of killing them. The effort intensified in the 1990s after hostile mobs confronted U.S. troops during peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in places like Somalia, Bosnia and Haiti.
If I get to choose, I’d rather
have Xanax used on me. ;)