Opinion please
Do you think the government should use ketamine on psychopaths? Why doesn't the government take a blood sample on bodies of unidentified people and use it to find family members... They used a blood sample at a crime scene to find the Golden State killer
Replies
IDK, it's very expensive for one thing. DNA is a huge factor in the legal system/medical system, I would think it's done now.
Hope you are doing well :) maybe an update?
Take Good Care <3 ml
Well, I had some answers but they vanished. Hold that thought
There is a good bit to consider in your question. Not all of it relates to each other. I'm no psychiatrist, psychologist or for that matter medically trained other than EMT long ago. I'm not a legally trained person. But I do read alot and have family members i consult for medical, scientific and legal matters.
The first is simply for consideration. The word psycho is problematic itself. We have a common parlance we think of based on brutally violent people. Well, that's an issue. To sound all sophisticated, the word psycho is Greek and means soul, spirit or mind depending where you look. Osis is also Greek meaning abnormal condition.
But we use it as follows: psychology, psychotherapy, psychotropic, psycho, psychopathy, psycopathic traits, psychotic break, psychotic traits, and others I undoubtedly don't know. This becomes important because we have to distinguish different meanings from context. The etymology of language is fascinating itself but that's my own interest. As my psychiatrist told me there are components to everyone's mind that have trait components. Some of these are needed for self esteem. So my point is that this is a more complicated picture that is worth knowing. An excellent layman read is a book called "The Psychopath Test" by Ron Johnson. That book is eye opening on how psychopath has meaning and there is indeed a test given to inmates for predictive behavior before release. You quickly learn to identify traits in people that are psychopathic in nature and often they are business leaders, military leaders and yes, politicians. But you will begin to understand the distinctions. This, by the way, doesn't include terms like sociopath which I've done no real reading to understand.
Ketamine. i know little about that except what i see on billboards and anecdotal stories. My son and wife's step father are MD's but not in the psychiatric field. They have reservations about therapeutic use for psychiatry but readily acknowledge its proven use in other medical matters. My own impression is that there is less consensus about this but apparently there are indications that it helps. National institutes of Health undoubtedly has research those are way to complicated for me.
Forcing a drug at all is its own issue. I think about that often but due to the dark history of forced medicine: eugenics, Germany's euthanasia program, Russian psychiatric hospitals, interrogation abuse and other sinister applications, there are obvious issues. in the US, we value free agency. The courts are very reluctant to restrict freedom and forcing meds or even quarantine is a huge hurdle. Having said that, the first time homeless get medicine is often in incarceration. Then they get out and its worse. You can't force someone with delusions to take medicine anymore than your md can force you to take diabetic medicine or some other therapeutic medicine. I've wondered about compulsory psychiatric medicine for homeless to help with stability instead of wandering about suffering degradation and abuse. But the history of psychiatry has not been a good one . Meds are used to control and calm down irritating patients. Recent story of a teacher lacing stickers with melatonin to kids to keep them calm shows how it trickles down even to schools. So quickly after explaining these basics, you have to really zero in on CORRECT diagnosis, most effective treatment combination, clearly stated medically and legally acceptable purposes. These don't agree many times.
DNA. Again, you raised two separate issues. The killer example voluntarily gave DNA to a company to find family. He was not compelled by courts to give DNA. That's its own legal quagmire. There would be a chilling effect on contributing DNA for all sorts of good reasons if people felt the government was doing sweeps of DNA to find wanted people to match up for crimes. Personally, I think its a fine idea but you can see how a suspect or even a definite offender would not be so eager to contribute. Imagine the effect of screening DNA at blood banks. There are some screenings required at the doctors office by states for certain things Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Hep B and HIV (I think that's the list) so it can be done in some ways.
In the military, they DO take DNA so that ones remains can be identified. My guess is that medical examiners do take DNA but keep it on file. I don't think there is an independent AI that sweeps data records to find DNA matches. Many states and even counties don't have personnel or resources that could accomplish this. As it is, states are not even required to report police shootings to a national database and you hear horror stories about hundreds and even thousands of rape kits done wrong, stored forever and not tested or some other outrageous end. So even when there are direct dna possibilities, they are not handled or used correctly. Civil libertarians, among others, bitterly oppose national id's and biometric identification is controversial. I happen to like it. But you can see how a nationwide database of dna would be controversial at a minimum. Again, with your direct question, I suspect medical examiners do obtain DNA but what is done with it and what CAN be done with it are not going to match expectation. Running license plates or do not fly lists are a simple matter, but DNA? not so much. You can read of inmates on death row who want dna tested and appeal for that to be done. That is not always allowed. I think there are cases like that.
The Chinese are trying to use trace dna from strange sources to match up dissidents. I cant recall the name of the report on this but they are using AI to try and do it. Don't get too excited, their AI and efforts at nationwide surveillance are not very successful and not likely to be. Nationwide databases and storage are complex matters. Computer storage of data, as I understand it, takes a great amount of capacity. That is not simple.
So you present a number of good questions that are complex and have no simple answers that satisfies the public desire for quick answers that seem like common sense. They are important questions to ask and discuss. These questions get people thinking, reading, exploring and talking. I know very little though I wrote a bunch. The real amount of research in all these areas would likely fill a room in paper and require people with expertise to understand. Agreement...you have three people in a room and six different opinions. Time and circumstances in the future may dictate something be done.
I'm sure that they would take a DNA sample of someone who died and wasn't identified
I think that they always try to find the next of kin
I don't know anything about Ketamine and if it's used to treat personality disorders
However people have the right to take or refuse medication if it's ordered
The only time it can be enforced at least in Canada is if someone has psychosis and there is a substitute decision maker making a decision
My thoughts on this are: being a psychopath is a personality disorder, cluster b type. Do you think ketamine would change their brains enough to make them normal nice people and take away their personality disorders? I have heard learned and experienced pyschology professionals say it is really hard to change when one has a diagnosed personality disorder. The person has to do a whole lot of work to change themselves and their thinking which means they have to really want to do that. The problem with cluster b personality disorders is people often see themselves as normal and the rest of us as flawed, stupid, inferior to themselves, etc. .
Oh, PS: it is unconstitutional for the government to jail someone with mental health problems unless they are a danger to themselves or others. And it is also a violation of our constitutional rights to be treated without our permission. The governments (States) used to put people in bad facilities if they were considered "insane" the wording long ago used. This is why drug users and mentally ill homeless can't be put into facilities or forced not to live out in nature or take medication. We have human rights in the USA.
Read the book, The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore to know about what happened to many women about 150 years ago until probably close to modern times.
Yeah I was thinking maybe a voluntary clinical trial for people who are diagnosed with it. Probably in a controlled environment to see what the outcome is
They could do brain scans too