Drugs
and the Military
This
piece is a confession of ignorance. I’m
going to tell you what I don’t know about drug use in the military in hopes I
can attract the eye of some historian eager to spend a little time – perhaps a
few decades – excavating through musty warehouses crammed with military
records.
The
ignorance I am talking about here is about how much drug use has taken place in
the American military and what effect, if any, that use has had on military
structure, discipline, and effectiveness.
While I am woefully ignorant, I have found some clues indicating that
more knowledge about those questions is available and can be discovered. These clues are tantalizing and I’ll share
them with you in hopes that you can add to them or share them with a historian
who may want to do the work. I’ve
arranged these clues by the major military engagements the U. S. has had,
beginning with the Civil War.
Civil War: Most people know that after the Civil War,
opiate dependency was known as the “Old Soldier’s Disease”, but most of these
addictions probably came from treatments for intractable and neuropathic pain
incurred after the patients had left the army.
At least one report has surfaced of a Union officer who made his troops
drink a daily dose of opium to prevent dysentery.
Indian Campaigns: From
about 1865 until 1880, most of the (very small) army was stationed in isolated
forts in frontier territories. These
were small, desolate, and far removed from settlements. Enlistments were for long terms. At least one soldier was disciplined for
using opium to relieve the boredom. (U.
S. Grant was disciplined for excessive alcohol use under similar circumstances
in the 1850s.)
East Asia: The
U. S. had occupational troops in the Philippines (1900 -40) and Canton, China
(1900 – 1930). The surrounding societies
had large numbers of recreational opium users.
Although I know of no reports of opium use by American troops in these
zones, the parallels to Viet Nam and Afghanistan suggest such use was likely.
Panama Canal Zone: The
Canal Zone was an American Territory from 1904 until 1999, and especially after
the canal opened in 1914, large numbers of troops were stationed there. Early on, the troops used large amounts of
marijuana, common in Panama. The use was
high enough that the Army Surgeon-General conducted a study, including
experiments giving marijuana to soldiers in controlled surroundings. His report, published in 1931[1], concluded that marijuana
was less harmful than cigarettes (as ironic as that sounds today) and had no
negative effects on discipline or performance.
The S-G’s conclusion was that no regulation of marijuana was needed and
that none should be instituted.
World War II: The armies of the world
discovered amphetamines just as World War II was beginning (amphetamine in
American forces and methamphetamine in those of the British Empire, Germany,
and Japan). Nickolas Rasmussen, in On Speed, gives an excellent overview of
this use, not only in WWII, but in conflicts since then, but he does not delve
into details. Use was widespread among
combat troops, up to the three- and four-star command level, and leaked back to
the support and replacement troops.
Rick
Atkinson, in The Guns at Last Light,
says that in August, 1944, Allied authorities in Paris were kept busy with wide-spread
marijuana sales to GIs. This was the
first assertion of marijuana use by American troops in that war, but it
reminded me that large numbers of troops were stationed in North Africa, where
its use was endemic for over a thousand years, and fought beside French
Colonial troops, many from parts of Africa where marijuana was common.
(A significant number of WW II veterans
are still alive, as are greater numbers who served in the military since
then. Oral histories could be a powerful
tool to find out about day-to-day drug use by these soldiers.)
Korean Conflict: None of the popular histories of the Korean
War suggest any drug use by troops.
However, one friend of mine, a veteran of Korea, said that the
Mexican-American troops he saw there always found some way to get their mota (marijuana). He also claimed to be unaware of any use of
amphetamines.
Viet Nam: The Vietnamese War was the
first time that drug use by American troops came to the public attention. This use included marijuana, amphetamines,
and heroin.
Television
news footage included scenes of soldiers “shotgunning” marijuana. Marijuana shipped or carried home by troops
popularized “Thai stick” and “Maui Wowie” as common names for the weed.
A
classmate of mine had been a helicopter pilot in ‘Nam. He told of company hootches (command posts)
where amphetamines were placed out in large bowls and the men “gobbled them
like M&Ms”.
Heroin
was the major dug story coming out of Viet Nam.
Southeast Asia was at that time the world’s primary heroin supplier, and
a surprising number of military personnel were returning from there with heroin
habits. The army instituted drug testing
for all military returning from there to the U. S., and some units were found
to have at least twenty-five per cent of their members who had used heroin (no
numbers were given to distinguish habitual from occasional use).
Persian Gulf War: The brief engagement in
Kuwait lasted only a few months. A later
report from the Air Force Surgeon-General revealed that over sixty per cent of
air combat missions were flown by air crews using stimulants (known as “go fast
pills” by those using them).
Afghanistan: The
current war, the nation’s longest lasting, is in Afghanistan, the world’s
leading producer of heroin and neighbor to Iran which has the highest
proportion of heroin addicts in the world.
Afghanistan is also a major marijuana producer. Although the military has tightly controlled
news reporting since the Gulf War, a few stories have leaked out.
One
report claimed that Afghani hashish was being sold to American soldiers for
$1.75 an ounce. This year a story
reported that an Air Force flight crew was involved in a fatal car crash in
Southern California. They were reported
to have made a non-stop flight of over twenty hours from Afghanistan to
California using stimulants to stay awake, then after landing and without rest
or sleep, left the airbase, had a few drinks, and crashed their car.
Do
these little hints add up to a major narrative?
I don’t know. Bu if I were a
paleontologist and saw this number of bone fragments strewn across the
landscape, I would start digging, confident that a dinosaur’s bones were below
that surface.
How
can you help? If you know a history professor, show her this essay. If you were in the military, tell us what you
did and what you saw. Ask your
grandfather and uncles to tell their stories (grandmothers and aunts as well). Be sure to record what you get. And until some competent scholar gets
involved, you can post your stories as comments to this piece or e-mail them to
me. I’ll serve as a repository until a
real historian gets involved.
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