Quote:
Originally Posted by dirtpoorchris  |
A few years ago, I had an email exchange with a doctor who researches historical combat drug use. Although the TIME article is mainly concerned with the lingering post-war psychological effects, which is entirely a valid concern, it omits the flip side of the use of psychoactive pharmaceuticals which can include lapses in battlefield judgement.
The modern history of the use of combat pharmaceuticals is rife with surprising associations: Methamphetamine, for example, was first isolated by a Japanese chemist in 1919 and was widely used by both Japanese and German troops during WW2 as a superdrug. According to an article in Spiegel (a German periodical like TIME) from 2005, drugs such as
Pervitin (mostly meth) were "part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance. The military leadership liberally dispensed such stimulants, but also alcohol and opiates, as long as it believed drugging and intoxicating troops could help it achieve victory over the Allies."
Meth, among others, is also well known to be used to keep child soldiers in modern-day Africa and Asian countries in a constant drug daze to help turn them into unquestioning, unthinking killing machines.
Given that all amphetimines, but in particular meth, are associated with paranoid psychosis, it is suspected that wartime massacres of civilian populations are often an unreported side effect of such drug use. The Nanking Massacre, in which about 200,000 non-combatant civilians were killed by Japanese troops is frequently cited as a candidate. If you doubt the effect of meth, here is a clip from a California news report showing
what happened when an ex-Guardsman high on meth stole a M60 Patton tank.
The mention of "mental problems" in the clip is related to drug use, since long term use of meth can cause, besides addiction, paranoid psychosis. Meth was the ultimate issue here. And it was routinuely used to enhance combat performance in WW2. The Blitzkrieg was about speed in more than one way.
The US also has a history of its own use of drugs in military situations as mentioned in TIME. In addition to the alcohol use mentioned in TIME, heroin got its name because in field studies people using it felt "heroic", and it was considered a "heroic drug" because it was believed that it would cure, ironically, morphine addiction, which was rampant among U.S. soldiers during the civil war.
Amphetamine also has been used in most branches of the US armed forces up to the present day. The Air Force routinely provides "go pills", or dexadrine, to its pilots to combat fatigue. In fact, that "routine" amphetamine use was central in the court martial of the Air Force pilots who accidentally bombed the Canadians in Afganistan in 2002. The military vigorously defended the use of such drugs in that case, so it would be resonable to conclude that since personnel has been overstretched in the Middle-east, the military probably has relied on quick fixes like dexadrine to keep troops combat ready in other situations as well.
Although less potent than meth, dexadrine or amphetamine, is still a Schedule II drug (along with cocaine, opium, et.) and can induce amphetamine psychoses, feeling "superhuman", on down to simple insensitivities in judgement...judgement, as in deciding whether an unarmed civilian is a threat or not.
The degree to which drug use might be an issue in questionable judgement cases should be investigated by an independent entity since I think as a combat drug, amphetamines, despite the moral drawbacks, has proven to be effective from WW2 onward in keeping troops fighting longer and with less hesitation. Militarily it makes sense, but morally it may not.
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