Pubdate: Thu, 14 Nov 2002
Source: Village Voice (NY)
Copyright: 2002 Village Voice Media, Inc
Contact:  http://www.villagevoice.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/482
Author: Cynthia Cotts

IT'S A GAS, GAS, GAS

Fentanyl Story Quietly Absorbed By Media

It first it looked like a cause for international outrage-"Nerve Gas 
Mystery" was the New York Post's headline on October 28. What had started 
as a crisis, with about 750 people held hostage in a Moscow theater by 
Chechen rebels, turned into a scandal when Russian authorities revealed 
they had used an aerosol form of the drug fentanyl to rescue the hostages, 
about 120 of whom died from overdose. Why did the controversy subside into 
a muted debate? Perhaps it's because the Pentagon wants to keep fentanyl in 
its medicine cabinet, in a drawer labeled "nonlethal weapons." If the U.S. 
denounces Russia for spraying drugs at a crowd, where does that leave us?

Just after the hostages died, talking heads speculated freely about the 
identity of the killer drug. Was it nerve gas left over from the Cold War, 
or one of the other substances specifically banned by the 1993 Chemical 
Weapons Convention? On October 29, CNN's Connie Chung asked plaintively, 
"Could that be used on us? And does the U.S. even know about it? Is the 
U.S. military using it as well?" The day before, CNN reported, citing 
Pentagon sources, "It could have been some form of chemical agent with the 
same chemical structure as heroin or opium. In other words, it's a 
hallucinogen."

Then suddenly the Russians dropped the veil. The killer drug wasn't nerve 
gas, or heroin, or BZ, the U.S. Army hallucinogen that dates back to the 
1950s. It wasn't an approved riot-control drug like tear gas, pepper spray, 
or mace. It was a derivative of fentanyl, which is also a pharmaceutical 
drug manufactured in the U.S., injected as an anesthetic during surgery, 
and prescribed in patch and lollipop form to treat chronic pain. While the 
Russian authorities insist the gas is not in itself lethal, every doctor in 
the U.S. knows an overdose of medical fentanyl can kill you. According to 
the Drug Enforcement Administration, the effects of the fentanyl class "are 
indistinguishable from those of heroin, with the exception that the 
fentanyls may be hundreds of times more potent."

That mystery drug? Shh. It's legal in the U.S.

With one mystery solved, another unfolded: How did a carefully controlled 
hospital narcotic become a military experiment in mass anesthesia? And why 
is everyone nodding their heads in consent? On October 29, The New York 
Times and Los Angeles Times published some clues. According to documents 
obtained by the Austin-based Sunshine Project, the Pentagon is currently 
studying the use of fentanyl, Valium, and other psychoactive drugs as 
"incapacitating," "nonlethal" weapons. (The feds deny conducting such 
research, but documents show the work is being contracted out by the 
Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. A recent report outlines 
proposed plans for Valium-laced pepper spray, carfentanyl dart guns, 
psychoactive chewing gum, and drug granules encased in a shell that can be 
fired from a mortar at thousands of granules per round.)

To put it another way, products originally sold as medicine have now become 
weapons in the hands of the U.S. military. For some, this is a comical 
revelation that gives new meaning to the terms "drug war" and 
"military-industrial complex." But for people who take warfare more 
seriously than a James Bond movie, it raises a serious question: Does 
manufacturing drug weapons violate international treaties?

According to experts polled by The New York Times, the Pentagon's secret 
drug weapons are legal for law enforcement and riot control. But Sunshine 
Project director Edward Hammond says they are not. In September, Hammond 
issued a press release accusing the U.S. of violating the 1993 Chemical 
Weapons Convention. The Sunshine Project called on Congress to freeze 
funding for the "nonlethal" research, declassify related documents, and 
hold the top dogs responsible. The group even called for a UN inspection team.

"We can present hard evidence for an illicit and shameful chemical weapons 
program in the U.S.," said Hammond. "If the U.S. invades Iraq and uses 
these weapons, we may witness the depravity of the U.S. waging chemical 
warfare against Iraq to prevent it from developing chemical weapons." As 
with other aspects of U.S. unilateralism, this predicted line of action 
would not only be hypocritical, but would also set a dangerous global example.

Since the hostage crisis ended, fentanyl gas and the Pentagon's nonlethal 
weapons program have received considerable attention in The New York Times, 
The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, The 
Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Time, and the San Francisco Chronicle, 
among others. Many reporters are now quoting Hammond and citing his 
documents. But several angles deserve more attention.

The most important is the question of whether drug weapons are prohibited 
by international treaties, or are legal, as long as they are used for crowd 
control, but not warfare. (That's the so-called loophole.) Aside from 
footnoting a possible treaty violation, reporters have yet to fully 
investigate the arguments pro and con. In an October 30 editorial, The New 
York Times hemmed and hawed about the potential downsides of drug gases, 
including fatalities and treaty violations, and then concluded that "in an 
age of terrorism, it would surely be desirable to develop a mist that could 
put people to sleep quickly without harming them permanently." Ah, poppies!

The Washington Post and Newsday have tried in vain to determine the exact 
nature of the gas used in Russia. Maybe Congress should be asking the 
Pentagon who makes this lethal gas and what countries possess it. After 
all, Israel used fentanyl gas in 1997. In an assassination attempt widely 
reported at the time, two Mossad agents approached a Hamas political leader 
and sprayed a variation of fentanyl into his ear. (The Baltimore Sun 
mentioned that story recently, but no one else has.)

Israel isn't the only U.S. ally with access to secret drug weapons: The 
Sunshine Project has evidence that the United Kingdom has looked into 
developing incapacitating gases. On October 31, the Times of London and 
Financial Times reported that the British government admits doing such 
research in the past, but says the research has now stopped. (Don't look 
for the U.K. connection in the U.S. media.)

"Most of the reporting that has been done on this issue in the U.S. has 
been off-base," Hammond told the Voice on a phone call from Geneva, where 
he has been attending the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention. "The 
media focus on whether or not the U.S. should develop this kind of 
technology missed the whole point of why this technology is broadly 
considered something beyond the pale of law and morality," based on a 
number of incidents dating back to World War I.

Hammond continued, "The failure of the U.S. and the U.K. to say anything 
about what happened, coupled with the knowledge that they, too, are 
interested in and developing this kind of weapon, will effectively result 
in the legitimization of using drugs in warfare and in many other 
situations of civil unrest."
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