By Laura French
CHARLESTON, SC – A proposed bill in South Carolina would make it a crime for the first respondents to use ketamine to incapacitate a suspected criminal.
If passed, the legislation would create a misdemeanor charge and impose penalties on state paramedics or police officers who “inject the ketamine drug into a crime suspect as a means of incapacitating him.” The proposed sentence for a rescuer convicted of this charge would be up to three years in prison.
A bill was presented to the South Carolina House of Representatives that would make it a misdemeanor for early respondents to administer ketamine to a crime suspect “as a means of incapacitating”. (Photo / South Carolina House of Representatives)
The use of the sedative by EMS agencies in the state was investigated after the death of James Britt Jr. in 2019, a week after he received ketamine by the Charleston County EMS after a meeting with Mount Pleasant Police, according to the WMBF . The Charleston County Coroner’s Office called his death a homicide, citing “asphyxiation by containment and the toxic effects of ketamine”.
State deputy Jerry Govan Jr., a co-sponsor of the project, said he expected the legislation to pass quickly and mentioned statements by the medical community objecting to the use of ketamine for non-medical purposes.
In July, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) issued a statement opposing “the use of ketamine or any other sedative / hypnotic agent to chemically disable someone for law enforcement purposes and not for a legitimate medical reason”.
In September, the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) responded to the ASA statement and other statements by health officials regarding ketamine, stating: “The suggestion that ketamine is being used routinely for ‘non-medical’ purposes is dangerously misleading. ”
Ketamine use came under national spotlight after Elijah McClain’s death in 2019 in Colorado, after he was restrained by Aurora police and administered ketamine by Aurora Fire Rescue Medics. A coroner was unable to determine a form of death for McClain and said the level of ketamine in his blood was at a therapeutic level, but that an unexpected adverse reaction could not be ruled out, according to the Denver Post.