The Daily Background
| Brits concerned the military is drugging their soldiers
by Arlen Parsa
The Brits are concerned that their soldiers are getting drugged by the military to make them more efficient fighters:
BRITISH troops are being prescribed with a controversial drug which has been blamed for making US pilots “trigger-happy” and causing friendly fire deaths.
The Ministry of Defence has admitted that it prescribes the amphetamine dexedrine, which is capable of keeping users awake for as long as 60 hours.
While the MoD has refused to say what it uses the Class B drug for, leading narcotics experts say that the main purpose is to keep soldiers awake during special operations. However, they have warned that the substance can be highly addictive.
Troubling, indeed. The article I just quoted from gives us a flashback to the US incident where the same drugs were used:
Amphetamines have been controversially used by the US Air Force to keep pilots awake on long missions, although the UK has always denied giving the ‘go pills’ to its pilots.
In 2002, the ‘Tarnak Farm incident’ saw US fighter-bombers attack a group of Canadian soldiers, killing four and wounding another eight near Kandahar in Afghanistan.
During official hearings into the incident, the US pilots testified that they had been ordered to take amphetamines to keep awake. The pilots blamed the pills for their actions.
I hadn’t actually heard about this incident to be honest, but it does remind me of the similar-sounding friendly fire death where US pilots fired on a properly marked British convoy way back in 2003, killing a British soldier (the Pentagon and British Ministry of Defence totally covered it up until a cockpit video was leaked to the press).
The argument that’s being made by some is that these types of drugs are necessary for certain situations because they keep soldiers alert- especially when a mission can last 60 hours. At the same time however, I don’t think it’s appropriate for the military to be forcing soldiers to take mind-altering substances.
There shouldn’t be 60-hour missions for individual in the first place when you have as large a military as the US or British one. The British have perhaps particular reason to be upset about this, considering that the British military tested LSD on soldiers back in the 1950s without soldier’s permission, consent or foreknowledge.
