Methamphetamine In The Military

"Performance enhancing" drugs for military applications are really not new at all. Amphetamines were used by the Germans, Japanese and Allies during World War Two under the name Pervitin. Adolph Hitler was a regular user of amphetamines, supplied to him by his personal physician Dr. Theodor Morell. In the 1936 Olympic Games films, Hitler can be seen moving his hands back and forth on his upper legs in a way that's consistent with the "stereotypical behavior" of many heavy amphetamine users.

When Hitler's injections ceased on occasion, he experienced severe depression, another common symptom among newly abstinent amphetamine or stimulant addicts. He engaged in all-night rants and monologues with endless repetition of the same stories, along with increasingly disorganized thinking and confused syntax. Disorganized thinking and confused syntax are hardly what we would expect from someone considered to be a "brilliant orator," which earlier in his career he clearly had been.

Hitler's mood swings also became more volatile and his paranoia increased - both "signature" effects of amphetamine addiction. And while early on in his career he accepted personal blame for poor decisions and tactical errors, he developed a tendency to project blame onto others, which is also typical of the addicted mind set. And when you view photographs of Hitler during different intervals within the last year of the war in Europe, you see his face age very quickly, which again, is a hallmark of heavy amphetamine use. By 1945, he looked much older than his 56 years.

The Nazis supplied their troops with almost unlimited quantities of Pervitin, and the records that were uncovered after World War II show that between April and July 1940, more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin were shipped to the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, and the SS.

Meth was also used by the U.S. Air Force and Navy in the Vietnam War. From Vietnam up through "Operation Desert Storm," the U.S. Air Force has employed the use of both amphetamines (the military slang is "go pills") in selected aircraft for specific missions, as well as sedatives to aid sleep when necessary. In primary Navy flight training and Nasa shuttle flights, Dexedrine is administered frequently in combination with scopolamine to combat motion sickness. Scopolamine is also an ingredient used in truth serum, and as a sedative.

Dextroamphetamine is routinely handed out by the Air Force to pilots to keep them awake and alert on long missions. Air Force pilots must sign a form called "Informed Consent for Use of Dextroamphetamine as a "Go Pill" in Military Operations." So although taking the drug is not technically mandatory, a refusal to sign the form could result in a Commander designating them as "unfit to fly a given mission," and the form states this clearly.

In December 2002, an installment of ABC's 20/20 news program examined the use of "go pills" in the military. During that program, Dr. Robert DuPont, one of the leading authorities on drug addiction in the U.S., stated he was shocked to learn the U.S. air force encourages, if not mandates, the use of amphetamines for pilots.

“People who get strung out on amphetamines are usually crazy,” DuPont said. “They’re paranoid, they stop eating … Their judgment is impaired and they do very bad things … They are the sickest of all drug addicts.”

Obviously, a drug like meth that keeps a soldier awake, more alert and feeling utterly invincible has a great deal of utility from a military perspective. The problem is, what else does it do, particularly if you begin taking it routinely? We know that among many other things, it lowers inhibition levels. Does that make it easier to drop a bomb, or easier to fire a weapon? It's thought that around the time that Hitler devised his "final solution" for the Jews, he was being administered the heaviest doses of methamphetamine. According to records that survived, methamphetamine use by SS personnel was widespread. You would almost have to believe that people were not in their right mind to do the horrific things they did.

The Japanese "Kamikaze" or suicide pilots were chewing methamphetamine like candy and situations like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the genocides in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and other war-torn nations have a distinctive look of "meth-fueled rage" to them. Can we really rationalize a ten year old hacking people to death with a machete by concluding he was simply "indoctrinated" effectively, or that the victims had been properly vilified in the murdering child's mind? Drugs, particularly of the stimulant variety, are obviously heavily implicated.

While few people advocate the use of methamphetamine, a great many people feel that it's somewhat hypocritical that we should sanction the use of amphetamines (or permutations of them) when it's convenient, or when it simply suits our purpose. And we obviously have to wonder whether some in the military aren't going to develop a speed habit if they're routinely taking meth for any length of time. It strikes us that the psychological and psychiatric effects of war are bad enough without complicating it further with "performance enhancing" drugs.

There are some who contend that in most instances where we've seen historical figures go "right off the edge," addiction is often at core of the behavior. Even if the individual is not taking large quantities of one substance, if they are mixing moderate amounts of more than one substance ("polydrug use") each substance potentiates (enhances and makes stronger) the other. So from the perspective of dependency or addiction, two and two doesn't equal four, it equals ten.

The point here is that drugs, whether we want to admit it or not, are "re-framed" into being a good thing depending on the application and the context. We seem to have great empathy for a celebrity or affluent businessperson who, in an effort to change their mental state, develops an addiction to prescription opiates or stimulants. They get thirty days of five star rehab, usually paid for by their generous insurance package. Yet under the banner of "the war on drugs," we throw poor, uninsured, street-level heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine addicts in prison for incredible amounts of time.

And that's not the fault of enforcement, they're doing what they swore to do as their job. In our opinion, it's the fault of legislators who can't seem to see the big picture. And in our opinion, this isn't about a "war on drugs" - it's a war on the poor, the disenfranchised, and the under-insured. And that's not fair.