[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[weegee]

Something I haven't read anywhere... did any of the terrorists die from the gas? I read about the hostages. Could there have been any identity issues?

And the article goes far enough to report that the terrorists might circumvent such a countermeasure by taking xxx as an antidote. Have to wonder who's side they are on really.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

The identity of the deadly mystery knockout gas is clear, however. It is a synthetic opiate called etorphine.

M99.

Doesn't this fall under the category of "loose lips sink ships"? (For Jack Wheeler, that is.) If M99 is indeed the substance, the reason the Russian government doesn't want anyone to know is so that the terrorists can't prepare for any future M99 gassings (antidotes, treatments, etc).