Careless Detention | Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation (washingtonpost.com)
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government’s forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the “pre-flight cocktail,” as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 — the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security’s new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

Federal officials have seldom acknowledged publicly that they sedate people for deportation. The few times officials have spoken of the practice, they have understated it, portraying sedation as rare and “an act of last resort.” Neither is true, records and interviews indicate.

Records show that the government has routinely ignored its own rules, which allow deportees to be sedated only if they have a mental illness requiring the drugs, or if they are so aggressive that they imperil themselves or people around them.

One of the drugs used in these cases was Haldol. 38 detainees were given 10-29 milligrams, 4 were given 30-39 milligrams, and 2 were given 40 milligrams of this very potent drug, used to treat schizophrenia, psychosis, persistent aggressiveness, Tourette’s syndrome, or manic disorder.  It produces a “zombie-like” effect in non-psychotic people.  It has the usual side effects of dizziness, drowsiness, difficulty urinating, trouble sleeping, headache, anxiety and pain at the injection site. May cause muscle spasms or stiffness, tremors, restlessness, masklike facial expression, and drooling.  The recommended daily doses for aggressive behavior are 0.5 milligrams twice a day to 5 milligrams three times a day, although doses of up to 10 milligrams a day may be used in a hospital emergency room.

The government gave 44 detainees well over 10 milligrams of this dangerous drug.  Keep in mind this is the same government that tells you marijuana has no medical value and is extremely dangerous, so much so that even your doctor can’t prescribe it to you.