Chemical Warfare: The US Military's Pill Addiction

[sad sally]

Published on Thursday, April 12, 2012 by Common Dreams - by Robert C. Koehler

To fight our insane wars, we’re wrecking our soldiers’ ability to live with themselves and function in society, then regulating what’s left of them with chemicals, which often make things immeasurably worse.

In the pursuit of order, could we possibly be creating more chaos, not simply externally — in the shattered countries we’re leaving in our wake — but internally, in the minds of those soldiers?

The Los Angeles Times noted that Air Force pilot Patrick Burke was recently acquitted in a court-marital hearing on charges of auto theft, drunk driving and two counts of assault — due to “polysubstance-induced delirium.” This was, the Times explained, a turning point: the first official acknowledgement, by military psychiatrists and a court-martial judge, that the drugs that have become a routine part of military service — in Burke’s case, the prescribed amphetamine Dexedrine (“go pills”) — can contribute to temporary insanity.

Better living through chemistry!

The chemical fix pervades the whole culture, of course, and while drugs can produce astounding results, they are demonically seductive and always have a down side. And nowhere, it seems, is their misuse more dramatic than in the modern military.

“After two long-running wars with escalating levels of combat stress, more than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year were taking prescribed antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs, according to figures recently disclosed to The Times by the U.S. Army surgeon general,” Kim Murphy writes in the Times article. “Nearly 8 percent of the active-duty Army is now on sedatives and more than 6 percent is on antidepressants — an eightfold increase since 2005.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/12-4

[WingDinger]

1. Servicemen, are their intelligent drones.

[Aristus]

2. On a national level, we are only about 50 years, and five or six relaxed Federal regulations

away from all being Melnibonean nobles. Living life cradle to grave under the influence of soul-robbing drugs...

[got root]

3. wow... that was a good article

the last sentence really rings true for me, too.

thanks for sharing

[PharmTech212]

4. Spam deleted by tjwmason (MIR Team)

[cbayer]

5. While there may be problems with some people, the use of psychiatric

medications in treating PTSD and other disorders that active duty soldier may develop can be extremely effective and save lives.

The marked increase in use is more likely related to the marked increase in war related disorders than simple overuse.