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Monday, June 15, 2009

Drug Problems Among Iraq, Afghan Vets Could Dwarf Vietnam

If you go here there is an extensive post I did on the practice of medicating our troops.

PTSD On Trail:Sgt. Nicholas Horner and the wound he spread

The Hartford Courant sounded the alarm bell years ago, but no one heard it. I guess the broadcast media was just too busy reporting on events at the time, like movie stars in trouble or other salacious pieces of gossip. What was being done to our troops above and beyond the hazards of combat was deplorable and apparently it still is. Read this and then know full well, that there is one more lesson we never learned from Vietnam. We didn't take care of them when they were deployed and we certainly didn't take care of them willingly either. We made them fight for everything we ended up doing for them. How long do you think it will take the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to be treated right?

Drug Problems Among Iraq, Afghan Vets Could Dwarf Vietnam
Drug Addiction Rates in Afghan/Iraq Vets Could Surpass Vietnam’s Rates

Atlanta, GA 6/15/2009 10:07 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
Rather than the heroin addictions many Vietnam veterans brought back with them from Southeast Asia, today's returning soldiers are more likely to be addicted to prescription medications -- the very opiates prescribed to them by the military to ease stress or pain -- or stimulants used by soldiers to remain alert in combat situations.

As a result, the U.S. could face a wave of drug addiction and mental-health problems among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars greater than that resulting from the Vietnam War, according to experts at the recent Wounds of War conference sponsored by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA*) at Columbia University (Join Together is a project of CASA).

Historically, substance abuse has "not only been present but fostered by the military," said keynote speaker Jim McDonough, a retired U.S. Army officer and former strategy director at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "At Agincourt, the Somme and Waterloo, soldiers got liquored up before combat ... There's been almost no break in that [tradition] today."

"I think there's a lot more [soldiers addicted to] pharmacological opiates than the data show," said John A. Renner Jr., M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine and associate chief of psychiatry at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System. "A lot of them were using opiates before they went, and a lot are reporting that opiates are freely available in combat areas."

Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), noted that while many soldiers receive prescription opiates for traumatic injuries and pain, the drugs also are effective in relieving stress. "So, even if you don't take it for that, it will work," she said.
go here for more
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=94142&cat=10

1 comment:

  1. Actually you can do it without a detox program. First we need to acknowledge that some are self-medicating. Some are addicts. My Dad was a violent alcoholic and he tried everything including detox. A few days later, he'd start drinking again. He went to AA and failed a few times before something happened and it finally worked. He stopped drinking when I was 13 and when he passed away at the age of 58, I was very proud of him. He knew he was on "borrowed" time because of issues with his heart. He knew he could die at anytime. He knew this for over 8 years but would not touch a drop of alcohol. He just didn't want to spend the rest of his life like that ever again.

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