War. On drugs.

[Jan 28, 2005] The number of suicides by soldiers serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom dropped last year by at least half -- a decline that helped lower significantly the Army's overall suicide rate.

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A cluster of suicides by U.S. troops in Iraq in the summer of 2003 alarmed military commanders in Iraq. In response, the Pentagon sent a team from the Army surgeon general's office to investigate and recommend improvements in mental healthcare.

Asked why the suicide rate fell so much, spokeswoman Martha Rudd said: "It's really not possible to tell. We think some of the efforts we've made over there are paying off, but also that the news coverage of the issue last year really elevated the level of attention paid to this." She said the military's efforts included putting mental-health workers closer to troops, training soldiers to spot those at risk for suicide and installing a countrywide coordinator to deal with combat stress.

Others point to a different possibility. Last year the Army largely quit using an anti-malaria drug called Lariam in Iraq that has been linked to depression, hallucinations, psychosis and rare reports of suicide. It was widely prescribed in Iraq in 2003.

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In September the Army said in a statement, "We have no data that indicate that Lariam was a factor in any Army suicides in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)."

Instead, the Army said, the deaths were linked to "failed personal relationships, financial crises, legal difficulties and mental problems like depression and psychosis" -- the same factors that trigger suicide in the general public, magnified by ready access to guns.
  UPI article

Conditions which still exist. So that doesn't explain the dramatic drop in suicide rate since the army quit dosing with Lariam.

[Jan 29, 2003]

Last summer, four soldiers from Ft. Bragg were accused of killing their wives. Two of the men committed suicide, and the other two await trial. So many brutal crimes, so similar, so close in time – raised questions, and the army sent a team to investigate.

One possible suspect was mefloquine - brand name Lariam, an anti-malarial drug. It was invented by the U.S. Army and is routinely given to soldiers deployed overseas. In scientific terms, Lariam can cause neuropsychiatric adverse events. In plain language, it can make lose your mind. No one questions Lariam’s effectiveness in preventing the deadly disease of malaria. Millions of tourists and other world travelers have taken it with no problem.

But a significant number of people have seen and felt first hand its devastating side effects.
  CBS article

Soldiers throughout wars have taken drugs like amphetamines to sustain combat and you’ll hear stories from WW11 vets who still recall the little white pills that kept them going for days. But at the turn of the 21st Century military research is focused on creating a very different beast, a chemically enhanced fighter if you like who can go without sleep or even food for up to a week. They call it metabolic dominance.

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The modern soldier is also a chemical soldier and this came crashing into the public eye in April 2002. Four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others were wounded in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan. The two United States Air Force pilots involved claimed that they were on speed but they had no choice but to take the drugs on offer.

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It’s well known that one of the effects of speed is that it reduces your capacity to take that extra second to think about what’s going on and think about what you’re doing. It produces a kind of immediate drive to act, so it’s quite plausible that their judgement was impaired by the drug that they were on. What’s really serious about this is that the modern soldier and the modern pilot has a degree of ordinance at their fingertips which is historically unprecedented – their capacity to deliver destruction is enormous. They are armed to the teeth with weapons with immense destructive potential so when they press the button what happens after that is tremendously final. And to the extent that soldiers are capable of delivering far more destruction far more quickly we should demand a far higher level of judgement from them about the correct application of that.

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The Pentagon’s Futurist In Chief, Andrew Marshall and his colleagues joke that a future intelligence problem is going to be knowing what drugs the other guys are on.

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And drugs in the military is not a new story but did you know that the use of amphetamines in the United States Air Force was banned in 1992 by the then Chief of Staff, General Merril McPeak. They’ve quietly slipped back into use. The air force argues that the amphetamines or go pills are needed so the pilots can stay alert and be focussed. When they return to the base they’re given sleeping pills or no go pills to help induce sleep. The military has defended the practice and has said that they are essential for combat pilots in situations like Iraq. They say it’s a voluntary decision but they also point out that those who don’t take them could be considered unfit to fly.

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[It's] absolutely the responsibility of those military agencies that put them in that position in the first place. And unless responsibility of that kind can be brought home in the right kind of way, unless in a sense the consequences of past bad decisions, the military is made to bear and to face up to the costs of these kinds of experiments, of these kinds of decisions, then we won’t see any slow down in the kinds of things we’re talking about today that we’re worried about.
  ABC article