Become too agitated on the streets of Nashville, Tenn., and police and paramedics may inject you with a drug that not only calms you but could make you forget the incident.

Police can and should seek nonlethal ways to deal with agitated and mentally ill individuals; however, injecting individuals with the powerful sedative Midazolam, which is also known as Versed, is simply a bad idea. I'd file this under the "lawsuit-waiting-to-happen" or "abuses-in-the-making category."

This practice makes even less sense considering that Nashville police recently banned the use of another popular nonlethal weapon: Tasers.

Last year in New York City, the improper use of a nonlethal Taser on a mentally disturbed man led to his death.
Police violated departmental policy when they Tased the man, who was standing 10 feet above the street on a security gate, without having something in place to break his fall.

Experts say they've never heard of using Midazolam in this way:

"I've talked to my colleagues around the country, and none of the people, from the South to the North to the East to the West, have ever heard about this kind of program, this kind of use where they basically force an injection upon an individual knowing nothing about his or her medical condition," ACLU Director Hedy Weinberg told WSMV-TV Nashville.

That is the main problem with this program. Although paramedics administer the injection, they have no way of getting a medical history from the individual. If police can restrain a person enough for paramedics to give an injection, then that person can be taken to the hospital, where a full complement of medical personnel is available to deal with any side effects.

Midazolam can also have negative effects on pregnant women. In Nashville, three women of child-bearing age were given the injection without their consent.

Second, those injected with the drug may not remember what happened afterward. How can individuals help in their own defense if police charge them with a crime? One man, Dameon Beasley, who was injected with the drug after erratic and potentially dangerous behavior, said he remembers waking up and police telling him to sign a paper before becoming unconscious again. "If they would've said I'd done anything after that shot, hey, I couldn't have argued that fact. I don't remember," Beasley said.

Finally, given the instances of racial profiling in this country, how can we ensure that African American, Latinos, women and the poor are not subjected to this drug more often than others? Studies show that African American men face harsher treatment and penalties in the criminal justice system. How many minorities have been killed when police said they thought they saw a weapon and none was found? Is the threshold for injection the same for everyone?

Police should be encouraged to seek nonlethal methods of dealing with mentally disturbed individuals. That should include better training that doesn't necessarily emphasize force or drugs as the first and only answer.