By Michael Edwards
The revelation that an Australian soldier serving in Afghanistan may have overdosed on drugs comes as no surprise to addiction experts.
One even says a risk of sending soldiers to Afghanistan is that some of them are going to become heroin dependent.
A senior lawyer is set to conduct an official inquiry into how the experienced Australian commando suffered a suspected overdose nearly a week ago.
A bottle of pills and white powder were found in the soldier's room.
He was found unconscious and unresponsive in his room in Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province last Friday and remains in a serious condition in a military hospital in Germany.
Australian soldiers already face random drug testing, but now there will be testing of the entire Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan.
"Life is unbearable," he said. "You don't know whether you're going to be alive in 10 minutes' time or not.
"Life has very few pleasures; you're very uncomfortable, it's either very hot or very cold, the food's pretty awful, the ever-present smell of death and you see some of your closest buddies die before your eyes.
"So life is really unbearable and heroin's cheap."
Afghanistan produces 93 per cent of the world's opium, the key ingredient of heroin.read more here
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