Secret Russian gas identified

The Washington Times ^ | October 29, 2002 | Jack Wheeler

[Quilla]

Across the world, yesterday's newspapers carried front-page headlines similar to that of The Washington Times: "Russia Remains Silent on Deadly Knockout Gas." The mystery of the knockout gas's identity has been solved.

Last Wednesday, some 50 Muslim terrorists from the Russian province of Chechnya stormed a theater in Moscow and took as hostages about 800 people (mostly Russians) who were watching a play. The terrorists demanded that Russian troops depart Chechnya, or else they would murder the hostages in cold blood. His patience running out and afraid the terrorists would carry out their threat, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a commando assault on the theater, led by crack Speznaz special operations teams.

[Quilla]

Great footnote!

[Diogenesis]

Whatever the therapeutic ratio was, the exhausted hostages would have had a lower one.
That said, the Russian did very well in the Free World's first counterattack of this type.
The Islamic/Chechen/al Qaeda terrorists would have left ZERO alive. ZERO.

[WilliamWallace1999]

You gotta love the good ole American chemical industry. This is the kind of stuff I WANT them to spend my tax dollars on.

Note, don't be so certain of the agent. Sufentanyl is also an extremely potent synthetic opiate. Used to be used in the OR, but was just to unforgiving in some situations. All the statements about reversing agents are on the money. This was a one shot deal for the Russkies. The next batch of terrorists will be forwarned. Actually, if one recruited hard core heroine addicts or slowly aclimated your terror cell to the effects of opiates; you could build an tolerance high enough to mute the effects and have plenty of time to react. Poor man's solution.

[Quilla]

That said, the Russian did very well in the Free World's first counterattack of this type.

I agree. Yet the arguement that the antidote shouldn't be made public (to save lives in this case) so as to prevent future terrorists from carrying same, is lame.

[Guna]

I would think that the Russians didn't want these terrorists to forget who they were and to start taking off their clothes - when they were rigged with explosives. Wouldn't it be likely that they would accidentally detonate themselves and blow everyone else up as well?

[DainBramage]

One wonders if there were 700 doses of Narcan in the whole country.

[Quilla]

Exactly my thoughts when I read that part of the article.

[Centurion2000]

Too much M99 causes respiratory paralysis. The muscles of your lungs and diaphragm can't move. Death from hypoxia — no air, no oxygen — comes quickly. And that's what happened to the hostages: They stopped breathing.

That hostages died is a tragedy, but at teh very least it was with far less pain than say getting BLOWN up by a stinking terrorist.

[antidisestablishment]

bttt

[EggsAckley]

THIS one?

[Paradox]

Once this is disclosed, the anger of Russian doctors may explode — because the antidote for M99 overdose is well known and available. It is a drug called naloxone, which, when injected into the blood stream, immediately blocks the opiate receptors and thus M99's effects.

According to reports I read immediately after the raid, the military DID tell them to use naloxone, even if they kept secret about the specific opiate. Problem is that there wasn't enough to go around, and the victims got it too late.

[dfwgator]

All these monday morning quarterback journalists have such easy lives, all they have to do is question decisions from the safety of their laptops. What would they have done in Putin's shoes, huh? Putin did the right thing, and he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize way more than Jimmy "the appeaser" Carter.

[KarlInOhio]

Note, don't be so certain of the agent. Sufentanyl is also an extremely potent synthetic opiate. Used to be used in the OR, but was just to unforgiving in some situations. All the statements about reversing agents are on the money. This was a one shot deal for the Russkies. The next batch of terrorists will be forwarned. Actually, if one recruited hard core heroine addicts or slowly aclimated your terror cell to the effects of opiates; you could build an tolerance high enough to mute the effects and have plenty of time to react. Poor man's solution.

Even knowing that it was a gas will ensure that future terrorists will always have a few members with masks on all the time ready to set off explosives if the rest of the crowd starts dropping.

[wastoute]

I almost think this is misinfo. Can etorphine be inhaled? Every ER doc in this country would automatically give a shot of narcan to any patient in coma especially if he didn't know why. The default isn't to stand around with your thumb up your tailpipe. 1 amp D50, 1 amp or two of Narcan. I would bet they DID try narcan, it would be the first thing an ER doc here would do. I still go with my guess yesterday, extremely nonpersistent nerve agent. The Ruskies are smart enuff to realize the loopy lefties in the West would have a stroke if the heard "nerve gas".

[muggs]

Once this is disclosed, the anger of Russian doctors may explode — because the antidote for M99 overdose is well known and available. It is a drug called naloxone, which, when injected into the blood stream, immediately blocks the opiate receptors and thus M99's effects.

I wondered all along why they didn't use this. Even if they don't know what gas it was, naloxone would do very little harm.

[Johnny Gage]

I thought maybe this was something to do with Ted Kennedy and his dinner of Chili, baked beans and beer.

[MissAmericanPie]

I asked myself when I saw the pictures, where are the EMTS?
If they had been on scene to inject the hostages the death count would have been much lower and there would be no need to broadcast the drug used. Planning is everything in these situations.

Just ask Janet Reno who will go down in history as having made the term Justice Department an oxymoron.

[Quilla]

You won't get any arguement out of me about Putin doing the right thing in this situation. His incredible stance on terror is even more enhanced by the order to shoot the incapacitated terrorists before they came to. That took guts.

[2sheep]

>Too much M99 causes respiratory paralysis.

Too little M99 and the Chechans blow up the theatre.  It seems the Russians are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

[cpdiii]

I think the reason the Russians used an opiate derivitive is the speed of action. (They have the other stuff too).

If they had of used an agent that is slower the terrorists
would have realized what was happening and set off the charges, killing everyone.This was probably the only agent that would knock them out instantly and give the hostages a chance at survival as opposed to certain death.