Tasers

My interest in Matthew Stanbrook's editorial on tasers1 was roused less by what Stanbrook had to propose than by the fact that CMAJ had finally thought fit to take up this issue. At the Toronto Police Services Board, the civilian governance body of the Toronto Police Service, we have grappled with the use and abuse of tasers for some time now.

Before we permitted limited deployment of conducted energy devices in Toronto, we asked the city's medical officer of health to undertake a review and provide us with his advice. He has never received financial or other compensation from TASER International. He was cautious about offering advice in the absence of sufficient evidence, and he emphasized the need for more independent research on the risks and benefits of the use of tasers.

Ontario's deputy chief coroner made an impassioned presentation to our board, advocating the use of tasers. He assured us that his published, peer- reviewed research had shown that not a single death could be directly attributed to the use of tasers.2 He said that the deaths associated with taser use were a result of excited delirium caused by other factors, such as drug use. My fellow members of the Toronto Police Services Board and I are not health care professionals; we believed that excited delirium was a valid medical condition until recently, when a coroner's jury in Ontario called for further review of this condition. I hope that Stanbrook's call for independent research will be heeded and that medical researchers will tell us whether to give any credence to the view that excited delirium is responsible for the deaths associated with taser use.

I do note, however, that in Toronto the use of tasers has not been associated with a single serious injury, let alone a death. We believe this is because we train our people well, have good guidelines for the use of tasers, monitor taser use very closely, publicly account for the number of times tasers are used and the location and circumstances of each use, and have emergency medical personnel monitor each person on whom a taser is used.