From 2018-2020, over 900 Colorado residents were injected with the drug ketamine while in police custody, giving Colorado the grim distinction of administering the highest number of such injections out of any state in the U.S., with over 17% resulting in serious and even deadly complications. Hunter Barr, age 26, is one of the recent victims who died after police detained him and injected him with ketamine, a powerful dissociative anesthetic.

In this week’s PAR, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis investigate Barr’s death and the troubling expansion of law enforcement’s use of tactical pharmacology. Graham and Janis also counterpose the unjust killing of Barr, for which none of the perpetrators have been held accountable, with the harsh punishment of Eric Brandt, a veteran, anti-police brutality protester, and member of Occupy Denver, who has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for “retaliation” against a judge using graphic verbal threats.

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