U.S. DEBATES DRUGGING RIOTERS

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.

Officials in the military's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate began
discussing whether it would be possible to develop drugs for use as
"calmatives," or chemical peacemakers. Those discussions continued at a
seminar with British military officials in 2000, according to a joint
report on the meeting.

"During war game scenarios, numerous participants expressed the desire to
have a NLW (non-lethal weapon) that could quickly incapacitate individuals
with little or no aftereffects," the report said.

Researchers at a Pentagon-funded institute at Pennsylvania State University
prepared a 50-page report that year saying that developing calmative
weapons "is achievable and desirable" and suggesting drugs like Valium for
further research.

One hurdle for using such drugs for riot control, the researchers wrote, is
finding a way to deliver the substances to large groups, such as in a spray
or mist. Another problem would be figuring out how to prevent other
injuries, such as by people falling down if they are knocked unconscious,
the researchers wrote.

That's as far as the military went, spokesmen for Pennsylvania State and
the military said. University spokeswoman Vicki Fong said the researchers
initiated the study themselves, not under a request from the military.

"We decided to step back and make sure the use of calmatives would not
violate the Chemical Weapons Convention," said Marine Capt. Shawn Turner, a
spokesman for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. "There are still
questions, and until those are worked out, we're not going to put any
funding into it."

Hammond said the research itself may have violated the anti-chemical
weapons treaty and any use of calmatives would be illegal.

"If the U.S. is going to denounce countries around the world for violating
chemical and biological arms control treaties, it better make sure its own
house is in order first," said Hammond, whose group obtained the
Pennsylvania State study and hundreds of pages of other nonlethal weapons
documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

The chemical weapons treaty allows military and police forces to use riot
control agents, such as tear gas and pepper spray, that produce temporary
irritation. The treaty bans use of chemicals that incapacitate people, however.

The report of the U.S.-British meeting said the American participants
agreed that research into calmatives "must be conducted in a manner
consistent with our obligations under international law, including the law
of war."