Now Even the Sheep in Montana are on Meth

In a bizarre and hilarious study, a bunch of cops got a flock of sheep high as kites on Meth and then used them for taser target practice. Supposedly there has been a rash of tweakers catching fire or dropping dead or something so naturally, science had to do something about it.

I love that picture. From Popsci here:

Growing abuse of methamphetamines has led to arrest-related deaths in situations where law enforcement officers used their Tasers on drug-intoxicated suspects. The latest study was designed to test whether electronic control devices (e.g. Tasers) can lead to dangerous cardiac responses in meth-intoxicated humans, with sheep standing in for people.

The less-lethal device of choice was the Taser X26, a standard law enforcement tool which can fire at suspects from a distance of 35 feet. Researchers shocked sixteen anesthetized sheep after dosing the animals with an IV drip of methamphetamine hydrochloride.

Some of the smaller sheep weighing less than 70.5 pounds suffered exacerbated heart symptoms related to meth use. But neither the smaller nor larger sheep showed signs of the ventricular fibrillation condition, a highly abnormal heart rhythm that can become fatal.

This is one of those times where they are looking at the wrong correlation of events. Its not that tweakers are more susceptible to dying when tased. But when meth heads have been doing the drug long enough that there is finally a police confrontation, the person is ravaged by the drug. If they keep those sheep strung out for six months and try again they will see similar results with meth heads.