2 Guantanamo detainees overdose on pills

[Eugene]

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 · Last updated 5:46 p.m. PT

2 Guantanamo detainees overdose on pills

By DAVID MCFADDEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two detainees who took overdoses of an anti-anxiety
medication they hoarded at Guantanamo Bay prison are recovering, a U.S. military
official said Tuesday.

"Both are speaking, moving their extremities," U.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said
during a phone interview from the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba.

The men, who Durand said were not among the 10 detainees at Guantanamo Bay
who have been charged with crimes, were found unconscious in separate cells
on the same day prisoners wielding makeshift weapons fought with guards in one
of the most serious clashes ever reported at the detention center.

The first man was discovered unconscious in his single-occupancy cell Thursday
after he failed to show up for morning prayers and the other was found hours later
as the guards searched the prison for contraband prescription medicine, U.S. military
officials said.

<snip>

Full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Guantanamo_Suicide_Attempts.html

[merwin]

1. We're giving "terrorists" anti-anxiety medication?

Funny... at least they can be happy about being tortured.

[MADem]

2. Well, I gotta say, I think this means we are holding people who have

no intelligence value, they're frustrated, understandably, and we don't know what the fuck to do with them. Can't release them; they'll TELL.

So, keep 'em calm, drugged to the gills, and hope there's some way they can wiggle out of this mess, somehow. Keep them all until we dump them all, then the reports will be diluted.

Disastrous.

[truthisfreedom]

3. WHICH anti-anxiety? valium? xanex (synthetic valium)? i want to know

just what drugs they're doping up these "detainees" with.

[dysfunctional press]

4. they should pump them full of elavil.

when i was on that stuff, i'd sleep 15 hours a day.

[Bluerthanblue]

6. and it's

lethal at least-

It takes a hell of a lot of xanax, or valium to kill yourself, unless you mix it with alcohol.

Elavil is a trycyclic and is far more deadly than most of the new psych. drugs-
They'd probably have had more success with tylenol than any of the benzodiazipines. Tylenol does a number on your kidney and liver.

[Bluerthanblue]

5. and who

can honestly blame them???-
We can live without water, without food, without shelter for extended periods of time- you can force feed and force hydrate people, but you can't stop someone who is hopless from ending their life- eventually they will succeed- and I can't blame them.
I'm amazed they haven't given in sooner. and beyond ashamed of my lack of ability to do anything of value to truly ease their suffering.

We'll fight to keep them alive, just so we can kill them?- this nation is so f#@ked up.

Remember Bobby Sands? And the IRA hunger strike folks-? they starved themselves to death- and the UK allowed it. At least they didn't 'try' to appear as if they something they weren't. The UK may not endorse the death penalty, but they don't enforce the 'life penalty' either.- Seems to me, there is more freedom in that- than in what we call our 'free country'.

[crizzo5137]

7. good for them