Prison Unruliness and Neurontin
"Correction officers at the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, a state prison on Staten Island with about 900 inmates, say they collect at least 200 prescription pills every day that inmates who are considered psychotic, depressed or disruptive pretend to swallow in the presence of nurses but then throw out. Perhaps the inmates mistrust the people giving them the drugs, or are weary of the side effects or believe they are not sick. But the costly result, according to Arthur Kill correction officers and members of the nursing staff, is a constellation of expensive yellow, blue and white pills they pick up off the ground, collect in a bag and flush down the toilet each day. The most common type of pills found, officers said, are Thorazine, a powerful antipsychotic; lithium, an antidepressant; Paxil, an antianxiety medicine; and Neurontin, an anti-seizure mood-stabilizing medicine often prescribed for nervous or unruly prisoners."

There are so many things wrong with this issue. First of all, why is the facility called the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility? Second, are prisoners unruly because of undermedication, overmedication, bad staff, or the innate problems of prison and what it does to you? Are we looking at this issue backwards?

NEW Bushism this week
"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other.
Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
—Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003

Classic Bushism
"Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information—outside the administration."—Chicago, Sept. 30, 2003, Slate Magazine