Yup, if there’s anything that could keep the Son of God from employing his miraculous powers to escape it’s gotta be a good ol’, healthy whap of Thorazine. After all, isn’t it what they always seem to use in every flick that takes place in a nut house to keep the crazies all sedated? But, just what exactly is Thorazine?

Thorazine is actually just one of the brand names for the drug chlorpromazine, a phenothiazine antipsychotic that was originally developed by Laboratories Rhône-Poulenc in 1950. Originally employed as a powerful antihistamine and antiemetic, Chlorpromazine’s beneficial effects in the treatment and sedation of the mentally ill were first heralded in 1951 by the French Doctor, Henri Laborit. The use of chlorpromazine quickly supplanted earlier, not to mention more barbaric, methods of treatment such as electro and insulin shock therapies and lobotomy, and, as such, became the very first antipsychotic drug ever. Not only was chlorpromazine proven effective in quelling the psychotic outbursts often associated with extreme schizophrenia, patients being administered the drug actually began to display marked improvements in their reasoning skills and general emotional temperament.

Chlorpromazine may be administered orally in tablet form or through intramuscular injection in its syrup form, but patients were rarely injected with the drug as much as they are in the movies!

Chlorpromazine affects a whole host of receptors in the human central nervous system resulting in sedation and an anxiolytic state. By blocking seratonin receptors the drug controls aggression which once made it the ideal drug for use with violent patients. The use of chlopromazine, however, has been all but discontinued (except in veterinary circles) in favor of newer antipsychotics. One of the major reasons for the decline in the use of chlorpromazine stems from the drug’s potential for the pejorative and completely untreatable side effect of tardive dyskinesia, a condition characterized by abnormal or impaired movement in an affected person.

One place you may still find chlorpromazine in use is on death row. Yes, in certain states the drug is administered prior to lethal injection and some states go so far as to mandate this pre-death dosing of chlorpromazine even against the condemned’s wishes. Guess they like to chill ya before they kill ya! Ha, ha, ha, ha. I’m going to Hell.