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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. So, Robert,
Speaker 1: you and I both play video games. We do. We've
Speaker 1: both been playing Fallout for Yeah, I was playing fall
Speaker 1: for Now I'm playing x coom To. But both have
Speaker 1: one huge thing in common, and that is that they
Speaker 1: both of these games involve soldier characters essentially engaging in
Speaker 1: sci fi battles and and then consuming various pharmaceutical products
Speaker 1: in order to survive. The horrors of war, to heal themselves,
Speaker 1: to avoid going crazy, to go just the right amount
Speaker 1: of crazy to overcome the obstacles. My my fallout for
Speaker 1: character is a big time drug addict, like major issues
Speaker 1: with drugs, because I just constantly and like putting what
Speaker 1: like jet and psycho and buff out into my like
Speaker 1: system so that I'm like better fights and um and
Speaker 1: you can combine them in this game, can Yeah. So
Speaker 1: he's also or it's actually ah, is my character is
Speaker 1: she in this one? No? In Fault four, I have
Speaker 1: a male character. But anyway, Yeah, he's constantly brewing up concoctions,
Speaker 1: little cocktails of stimulant drugs and then you know, of
Speaker 1: course and follow you eventually get that thing where if
Speaker 1: you take too many of them you start seeing side effects.
Speaker 1: So my character is to the point now where he's
Speaker 1: always carrying around whatever the like detox drug is, yes,
Speaker 1: and like popping those so that like he can sober up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my character she did. She never she never had a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff and abuse problems in the thought for
Speaker 1: but I did reach the point where she was having
Speaker 1: to carry around the the anti addiction medication and just
Speaker 1: tons of buff out, which is like the steroid that
Speaker 1: allows you to carry more items because going out fighting enemies,
Speaker 1: having to loot the enemies, and then can't move because
Speaker 1: I'm carrying so much stuff, I have to start using
Speaker 1: the buff out. Yeah, that's an you know what, I've
Speaker 1: never thought about using buff out to do that before,
Speaker 1: but that totally makes sense. I usually just turned my
Speaker 1: companions into pack mules, just make them carry everything. Well.
Speaker 1: So the reason why we're talking about this this isn't
Speaker 1: the hasn't become a video game podcast if you're a
Speaker 1: regular listener, But we are curious about the science of
Speaker 1: combat drugs and where we're at with that in modern
Speaker 1: day society. And what seems to have sparked this was
Speaker 1: a recent episode of Black Mirror. Yeah, yeah, the I
Speaker 1: want to say it's the fifth episode in season three,
Speaker 1: an episode titled Men Against Fire. We're not gonna go
Speaker 1: into any spoilers to that episode until perhaps the very
Speaker 1: end of the episode. We'll give you fair warning, uh,
Speaker 1: but suffice to say it deals with this topic in
Speaker 1: um and I thought a rather rather thought provoking manner,
Speaker 1: and so we did the research on this. We've got
Speaker 1: some science on military chemistry to share with you today.
Speaker 1: The phrase that I came across that I really like
Speaker 1: is better warriors through chemistry. Um. It is a complicated,
Speaker 1: uh topic, especially in terms of ethics. And I didn't
Speaker 1: you know, I guess, like in the back of my head,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that, like you and I read science
Speaker 1: articles on a pretty regular basis, I thought that it
Speaker 1: was a little more sci fi than it actually is.
Speaker 1: Like my version of it, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like sure, there's got to be a drug that gives
Speaker 1: you better eyesight right now or something like that, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And I think what it's reminding me of is our
Speaker 1: episode on cyborgs. And one of the articles for this
Speaker 1: research did refer to the ways of using drugs on
Speaker 1: soldiers to make them better warriors as a version of
Speaker 1: cyborg ism. Um. And and actually this is a good
Speaker 1: way to lead into there's article in the Bulletin of
Speaker 1: Atomic Scientists called the Enhanced Warfighter, and in that they
Speaker 1: argue that there are four different categories for the potential
Speaker 1: enhancement of military personnel, and the ones they list our
Speaker 1: genetic alteration of the human body, which is very controversial,
Speaker 1: physiological monitoring, and a tighter coupling between man and sheen.
Speaker 1: Pharmaceuticals was what, which is what we're mainly going to
Speaker 1: focus on today, and then nutrition and supplementation, which we
Speaker 1: will also talk about today. They they in that one
Speaker 1: on that's kind of a positive note, right like the
Speaker 1: other three or varying levels of creepy. But then oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know they should eat. Well, that's there's nothing intrinsically
Speaker 1: horrible about that. Well, it turns out, and we'll get
Speaker 1: to this later that there are some issues surrounding dietary
Speaker 1: supplements of the military as well. Um, but today we're
Speaker 1: really interested in the pharmaceuticals. One. As of eleven, nearly
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten thousand active duty army troops and
Speaker 1: we're talking about United States troops here because that's where
Speaker 1: we're based in UH they were prescribed with either antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics,
Speaker 1: or anti anxiety drugs. This is eight times the amount
Speaker 1: that was reported in two thousand and five. I guess
Speaker 1: you could some people would just chalk that up to
Speaker 1: a higher usage of those UH medications in society in general. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I mean that's one one take you can
Speaker 1: you can have on it, is that certainly we live
Speaker 1: in a more medicated society. Yeah. But then of course
Speaker 1: the other side is that like this is war, and
Speaker 1: war has always been a traumatic endeavor absolutely, um. And
Speaker 1: so the ultimate reason why science is reviewing all of
Speaker 1: this information is the continual belief that the government and
Speaker 1: the military must balance long term health hazards with the
Speaker 1: drug effects that are designed to reduce a soldier's risk
Speaker 1: for injury or death. So, of course you want to
Speaker 1: make sure that your soldiers survived the experience, but you
Speaker 1: also want to make sure that in the long term
Speaker 1: when they get back, they're they're healthy both physically and mentally. Um,
Speaker 1: that you're not subjecting them to something that they didn't
Speaker 1: sign up for. Yeah, because you know, we we turned
Speaker 1: to these sci fi examples. But a real life soldier
Speaker 1: is not a space marine. It's not this, uh, this
Speaker 1: inhuman individual who goes out and just battles bad guys
Speaker 1: his or her entire life and you know, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a family or other concerns. There are individuals
Speaker 1: who who go off into this endeavor and then I
Speaker 1: want to come back, expect you to come back and have,
Speaker 1: if not a completely civilian life, then at least have
Speaker 1: these these non warfare modules to their existence. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the articles that I read described it as
Speaker 1: it might have actually been this atomic scientists one. Um.
Speaker 1: They said, you know, we need to remember that these
Speaker 1: are people and not machines. Um. And yeah, like you may,
Speaker 1: military officials may treat them like machines, like when they're
Speaker 1: strategizing war. Right. But yeah, like you said, like they
Speaker 1: you eventually want them to be able to return to
Speaker 1: civilian life, and presumably so do they. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: something you have to worry about an x com right exactly,
Speaker 1: nor in fallout. There's no real civilian life except for
Speaker 1: I don't know, hanging out on the beach with your
Speaker 1: with your dog. I guess that's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a civilian life. Us. You could the game is open
Speaker 1: enough that you could carve out a civilian life. But
Speaker 1: you can get married or where I don't know, married
Speaker 1: isn't the right term. But I have multiple uh uh
Speaker 1: spouses throughout the waste land. Oh well, my character is
Speaker 1: polygamous in that. Uh So, yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Better warriors through chemistry. So for military officials, performance enhancing
Speaker 1: drugs are seen as the key to the success of
Speaker 1: military conflicts. What they're imagining is the ability to keep
Speaker 1: soldiers fighting for days at a time without rest and
Speaker 1: with the ability to perform in ways beyond the level
Speaker 1: of most of today's enlisted people. Specifically, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the ability to operate without sleep. That is seen as
Speaker 1: a game changer for military affairs, and it changes the
Speaker 1: concept of what is referred to in strategy as operational tempo.
Speaker 1: This is beyond dealing with sleep deprivation in PTSD as well.
Speaker 1: There are also hopes that chemistry will allow soldiers to
Speaker 1: reduce their acclimatization to high altitudes or to being under water.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you're a soldier, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: take a performance enhancing drug that's going to increase your
Speaker 1: chance of coming home alive? Right, Um, So there shouldn't
Speaker 1: be I'd like to stress this, like, there shouldn't be
Speaker 1: like negative value judgments on the soldiers that are doing this,
Speaker 1: especially like in some cases we'll find out like it
Speaker 1: is required of them as part of their military service.
Speaker 1: But the reason why it's becoming more prevalent is we're
Speaker 1: moving into this era where more wars are going to
Speaker 1: be fought using attack aircraft that are flown for really
Speaker 1: long distances, and as more adversaries developed ballistic missile technology,
Speaker 1: we are going to attack from further away. Right, there
Speaker 1: will be further back, longer flights. And you'll find out
Speaker 1: today like a lot of what we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about with stimulant uses is based around air force pilots,
Speaker 1: long flights, long bomber runs. Historically, that sort of thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so according to ABC News in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: the military spent a hundred million dollars a year. That
Speaker 1: was ten years ago, so it's probably I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's up to now. I couldn't find research on that,
Speaker 1: but they were spending that much money a year on
Speaker 1: research to find ways to reduce soldiers need for sleep
Speaker 1: while retaining their cognitive functions. So that's hugely important to them. Um,
Speaker 1: So let's segue into this. That is of course a
Speaker 1: major reason to stay alert, to be motivated, But what
Speaker 1: are the other reasons? Why would you What are the
Speaker 1: other reasons you would take various drugs? Right? We think
Speaker 1: about like the video game ones. While there's like healing
Speaker 1: drugs or strong drugs, steroids, Uh, there's ones that slow
Speaker 1: down time. I don't think we have those in real
Speaker 1: life yet not not exactly um like I guess you
Speaker 1: could say relative relativistically speaking. But and then there's those
Speaker 1: that make you work se as well. I'm reminded again,
Speaker 1: like time and time again, of the the old adage
Speaker 1: that that a battle is one not necessarily by large,
Speaker 1: sweeping advantages, but by a whole lot of small, sometimes
Speaker 1: petty advantages that are stacked one on top of the other.
Speaker 1: So like every advantage that you can take, you take
Speaker 1: because it it all can add up and uh and
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of like filling out the character
Speaker 1: sheet of the average soldier is like, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: we're gonna buff that stat. Of course we're gonna buff
Speaker 1: that stat. If we can buff that stat, will buffet
Speaker 1: because buffing all of these stats improves the potential for
Speaker 1: victory and both small and large victory, and of course
Speaker 1: survivability of the soldier. Now we run into their additional
Speaker 1: concerns when you start talking about long term survivability and
Speaker 1: start talking about mental health. But we'll get into some
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, but I never thought about that before.
Speaker 1: It is we're what we're talking about is essentially like
Speaker 1: the minimaxing of warfare in the same way that like
Speaker 1: people do with video games like World of Warcraft or
Speaker 1: or tabletop games like D and D or something like that,
Speaker 1: And like they're they're trying to fine tune uh their
Speaker 1: warrior so that like it has all of the advantages
Speaker 1: available to it, right, all the tools in the toolbox
Speaker 1: are there. Uh, well, outside of being alert and motivated,
Speaker 1: of course, being better and stronger and faster. Right the
Speaker 1: old Daft Punk song, Uh, that is hugely important war
Speaker 1: for the most part, outside of well, even with drone
Speaker 1: drone use in some cases, I mean, you're still talking
Speaker 1: about war as a physical exercise. Yeah, So steroid use
Speaker 1: is up in military personnel, and in two thousand eight
Speaker 1: it was one point nine percent. Uh, in two thousand
Speaker 1: two it was only point nine percent, So there seems
Speaker 1: to be a gradual rise going on there. But let's
Speaker 1: be clear, the possession of steroids without a doctor's prescription
Speaker 1: actually counts as a violation of the Uniform Code of Justice.
Speaker 1: But some soldiers take them anyways to enhance their physical
Speaker 1: abilities during combat. Again, as I was saying earlier, like
Speaker 1: if you think that's gonna increase your chances of coming
Speaker 1: home alive. That makes sense, right, Uh, so they get
Speaker 1: them smuggled in mail order packages or they pass them
Speaker 1: along by American contractors. But officials really keen to a
Speaker 1: whole lot about this because it apparently would cost hundreds
Speaker 1: of dollars just to screen each package in person, which
Speaker 1: is outside of you know, the military's budget. The most
Speaker 1: popular one. And I read this and I thought, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, that's not steroid. Is five hour energy, which
Speaker 1: you know you see commercials for all the time. We
Speaker 1: keep boxes of it here at work. That's right, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. Um get this, the military alone makes up
Speaker 1: nine point two million dollars of that company's sales. But
Speaker 1: then this is even crazier. That's only one percent of
Speaker 1: their annual sales. I had no idea five hour energy
Speaker 1: drink was that big man, I mean me neither. I
Speaker 1: mean I know that it is everywhere, like literally, anywhere
Speaker 1: you can buy something, there's gonna be a little a
Speaker 1: little cube of those tiny bottles. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of it being used in the military, But it's also
Speaker 1: only a fraction of what that company is selling to
Speaker 1: the world. I think I've maybe had it once. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just never been appealing to me, But well, it's
Speaker 1: not supposed to taste of right, Yeah, yeah, I have.
Speaker 1: I've taken them more times than I than you care
Speaker 1: to admit, would care to admit her account in my head? Um,
Speaker 1: But you know that's the thing is like, sometimes it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I can shoot this thing, or I cannot
Speaker 1: shoot this thing. If I shoot this thing, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have a momentary scowl on my face. But maybe have
Speaker 1: you know a few more hours of energy to devote
Speaker 1: to this test? Well in the concern and again like
Speaker 1: five hour energy. I just kind of thought of it
Speaker 1: as being like red Bull. But apparently the concern is
Speaker 1: that the drink is actually impairing personnel performance and it
Speaker 1: causes soldiers to sleep less, so much so that they're
Speaker 1: dozing off while they're on duty. So there is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a problem associated with it. Some soldiers
Speaker 1: also take over the counter diet pills, diuretics, and laxatives.
Speaker 1: This is what I was talking about, nutritional supplements so
Speaker 1: they can meet the military's weight and fitness guidelines. I
Speaker 1: didn't think about this either. So a two thousand three U. S.
Speaker 1: Army Research Institute study on non prescriptions supplement use. Found
Speaker 1: that nine of Special Forces soldiers used supplements of some sort,
Speaker 1: so that's a lot um six sorry, seventy of support
Speaker 1: soldiers also used them. And then the big example that
Speaker 1: popped up here that made it that highlighted it tennis
Speaker 1: player Maria Sharapova. Do you remember this when she used
Speaker 1: a drug during like a tennis I think it was
Speaker 1: the Australian Open maybe um and so she was subsequently
Speaker 1: banned from this. It's a drug that was developed by
Speaker 1: the Soviet military during their invasion of Afghanistan so that
Speaker 1: their soldiers could focus under stress. And it's called meldoni um.
Speaker 1: It's used to treat heart disease and other chronic conditions
Speaker 1: pretty much on a regular basis in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: It's also referred to as mill drawn eight and it
Speaker 1: was developed by a guy named Ivars Kelvin's when he
Speaker 1: was studying mechanisms of stress on the human body. Well,
Speaker 1: so it was used in Afghanistan by Russian soldiers because
Speaker 1: it helped them with high altitude oxygen deprivation. Now to
Speaker 1: be clear here, Sharapova said the reason why she took
Speaker 1: it was because she had a family history of diabetes
Speaker 1: and low magnesium levels. She wasn't even aware that it
Speaker 1: was illegal outside of Russia. Calvin's the guy who invented it, essentially.
Speaker 1: For his part, he said, he doesn't even think that
Speaker 1: it should qualify as as being something that provides an
Speaker 1: unfair athletic advantage. So there's a lot of little little
Speaker 1: ways out there, from five hour energy drink to these
Speaker 1: like obscure Russian medications soldiers can take to enhance their performance.
Speaker 1: It's interesting and looking at both this um this Russian
Speaker 1: medication and the use of the five hour energy drinks
Speaker 1: because we kind of get into this whole uh like
Speaker 1: the hopeless Ebo effect again, and and and sort of
Speaker 1: just putting a mild supernatural faith in whatever you're taking,
Speaker 1: like is it actually helping you out? Is it providing
Speaker 1: an athletic advantage? Is it actually is it actually making
Speaker 1: an impact and your performance as a soldier, or is
Speaker 1: it just hurting you when the pendulum swings back the
Speaker 1: other way? It's uh an open question. I didn't add
Speaker 1: this to the notes here, but one of the articles
Speaker 1: that I was reading, like, I was talking about how
Speaker 1: when he was at West Point he was basically doing
Speaker 1: like an op ed piece for The New York Times
Speaker 1: about his experience in the military and the various drugs
Speaker 1: that came along his way while he was serving, and
Speaker 1: he said it started when he was at West Point
Speaker 1: and that, like everybody where, it was taking adderall to
Speaker 1: help them to just be able to take their tests
Speaker 1: and do the physical uh, you know, completion of of
Speaker 1: their service required there. So yeah, I think it starts early.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's common. But like you said, I
Speaker 1: mean Adderall five hour energy drinks, Like this is stuff
Speaker 1: people I went to high school with. You know, we're
Speaker 1: using We didn't have five hour energy back then. It
Speaker 1: was different stuff. But uh, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not like they're shooting heroin to get through classes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean Adderall is a prescription medication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty potent stuff, it is. Yeah. That and
Speaker 1: and that actually leads us, speaking of heroin, uh to
Speaker 1: the next reason why a soldier would need drugs to
Speaker 1: kill pain obviously. Yeah. Physical, It's like you said, war
Speaker 1: is a physical is a physical enterprise, and it's a
Speaker 1: bit of physical enterprise in which both sides are trying
Speaker 1: to hurt and kill the other. So they're gonna be injuries,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna want to kill the pain in those injuries.
Speaker 1: So combat medics often prescribe pain killers, and that includes ox, cotton, vicodin,
Speaker 1: and morphine. Uh And in fact, like on a long
Speaker 1: term basis to like they'll give them, you know, prescriptions
Speaker 1: that last for a number of days so that they
Speaker 1: can keep them on their feet. And this has always
Speaker 1: been a h an issue soldiers coming coming back from
Speaker 1: the war effort having to deal with injuries, having some
Speaker 1: sort of medication uh in in in the mix and
Speaker 1: it becoming a problem. Like I'm always so reminded of
Speaker 1: the John Priyan song Samstone, I don't know that one
Speaker 1: of the most depressing songs you ever heard, with the
Speaker 1: about a guy who comes back from the war addicted
Speaker 1: to morphine, with the course there's a hole in Daddy's
Speaker 1: arm where all the money goes. It's a wonderful song,
Speaker 1: but it'll it'll destroy yourself. Well yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a very real thing. And of course, the military doesn't
Speaker 1: want an injured soldier to leave the war zone, so
Speaker 1: they've designed these pharmaceutical prescriptions so that soldiers stay on
Speaker 1: their feet. They're they're continually in the war zone unless
Speaker 1: they're you know, significantly injured. The downside is, like you said,
Speaker 1: addiction and medication swapping is real common too. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what about soldiers who come back from war and they're
Speaker 1: dealing with trauma. We've talked about this a lot on
Speaker 1: the show before, especially on We have a whole episode
Speaker 1: out there about using m d m A to help
Speaker 1: with PTSD. That's right. We also have one of the
Speaker 1: Tetris episodes that Joe and I did a wombat gets
Speaker 1: into ways that that may be used to help PTSD,
Speaker 1: as well as our recent dream episodes that discuss some
Speaker 1: of the ways that dream management software and dream manipulation
Speaker 1: could be utilized, as well as other techniques involving the
Speaker 1: selective deletion of memories. We also past podcasts to do
Speaker 1: with that. Now, there are a few different PTSD medications
Speaker 1: that are currently in use, and we'll get to those
Speaker 1: in a bit. But of course, where is the post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress coming from. It's coming from the traumas of
Speaker 1: war and and this gets into another possible area, another
Speaker 1: possible reason a military might want to augment their soldiers chemically,
Speaker 1: and that is to make killing easier. Now there's this
Speaker 1: is not something where there is you know, this is
Speaker 1: this is not an area where you see a lot
Speaker 1: of actual uh you know, research popping up was saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: here here's something that certainly nothing where you see the
Speaker 1: military saying, oh, they give this to soldiers to make
Speaker 1: them make them more okay with killing. But a great
Speaker 1: deal of the of military training is about trying to
Speaker 1: hone soldiers performance so that they can kill when it
Speaker 1: is required of them. And then a lot of the
Speaker 1: problems with PTSD is sort of fixing things afterwards, because
Speaker 1: one of the things it's easy to forget, especially as
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're watching movies, we're playing video games,
Speaker 1: is that is that killing is not easy for the
Speaker 1: vast majority of pete UM. Most of us don't have
Speaker 1: the experience of taking a human life in a combat situation,
Speaker 1: so we can't even really compare it. We can only
Speaker 1: compare it to these fictions. But it's actually quite a
Speaker 1: bit of evidence out there that backs up the notion
Speaker 1: they we have as humans a natural aversion to killing
Speaker 1: each other, and aversion that is that is present in
Speaker 1: typical human specimens and must be circumvented in the name
Speaker 1: of war, and a lot of of the evidence for
Speaker 1: this comes from military researchers who have a vested interest
Speaker 1: and of course mapping and breaking those barriers from training. Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: like it comes down to I don't know, maybe this
Speaker 1: is a cress uh metaphor, but like I'm thinking again
Speaker 1: about this, like minimaxing of a soldier, right, and this
Speaker 1: is like you want to negate the effects, the emotional
Speaker 1: and psychological effects that would go along with you know,
Speaker 1: any quote unquote normal person killing someone else. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I come back to xcom or and and and X
Speaker 1: calm to where you're moving these soldiers around, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you're becoming attached to them. You don't have to treat
Speaker 1: them as actual human beings in staid. You you look
Speaker 1: at them, and you you look at their percentage to hit,
Speaker 1: their aim and their will, and you're in you're criticizing
Speaker 1: some of these character like why is that why can't
Speaker 1: this one not actually hit any of the enemies? When
Speaker 1: why does this one uh panic and start shooting at
Speaker 1: random objects just to the drop of a hat um.
Speaker 1: But of course these are all sort of legitimate concerns
Speaker 1: of taking uh taking humans who are not you know,
Speaker 1: not not built for this, that have not evolved to
Speaker 1: engage in this kind of of of warfare. So here's
Speaker 1: the thing I've never thought about before. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a video game out there, like a first person
Speaker 1: shooter type game that takes PTSD into account. Um, maybe
Speaker 1: there is. And I'm just not familiar to be something
Speaker 1: in the in the indie realm, because certainly the big
Speaker 1: blockbuster war games are seemed to be all about this uh,
Speaker 1: this fantasy world war fair where there's there are no
Speaker 1: real consequences to killing other individuals. Well that's so all right.
Speaker 1: A little bit about myself here is like with these
Speaker 1: video games, I personally just don't enjoy playing, especially shooter
Speaker 1: games that are based down real life scenarios. I can
Speaker 1: have some demons or some exactly yeah, like make it
Speaker 1: like throw in some sci fi fantastic elements and I'm
Speaker 1: right there. I'll enjoy it. But as a game, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the call of duty stuff doesn't appeal to me.
Speaker 1: But then I think of like, well, what if there
Speaker 1: was call of duty colon PTSD, you know, and it
Speaker 1: was just like well, and I guess like I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this as a joke, but more as like I guess,
Speaker 1: like a way to make people aware of the actual
Speaker 1: like effects of what's happening to the people in the
Speaker 1: real world and acting these events and and um, you know,
Speaker 1: we just listed like all these episodes in which we've
Speaker 1: talked about ways to help people with PTSD. We've heard
Speaker 1: from a lot of listeners who have PTSD and if
Speaker 1: I tried some of these things, we have tried other things,
Speaker 1: and it's very real affliction for them. So I guess
Speaker 1: I just am thinking, like, one, I'm glad that it's
Speaker 1: more out in open than it was twenty thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: and like we're able to talk about it at least.
Speaker 1: But I think I would like to play a game
Speaker 1: like that, not in the sense of like, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: enjoying the experience of PTSD, but that it would be
Speaker 1: like a richer story because it's it's it's sobering when
Speaker 1: you're playing one of these games I've been talking about,
Speaker 1: like going to fall Out and pull up your your
Speaker 1: kill stats for your God and it's like it's horrifying
Speaker 1: because this character has killed your mess thousand people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're a mass murder they're they're abhorrent, Like even those
Speaker 1: world is is pretty abhorrent. Uh Like they're a part
Speaker 1: of it and they're causing all of this pain and suffering. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Now it is opposed to real life where you're you're
Speaker 1: ultimately your average like kill ratio and hit ratio is
Speaker 1: typically going to be uh far lower. Yeah, so get
Speaker 1: into this. This is really interesting to me and I, um,
Speaker 1: I only learned this for the recent it's for this
Speaker 1: episode end. It's connected to the black Mirror thing where yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is interesting. A lot of it and
Speaker 1: again a lot of this comes from military researchers who
Speaker 1: are trying to to to figure out how to improve
Speaker 1: performance of soldiers. So soldiers tend to intentionally fire over
Speaker 1: the enemy's head or to not fire at all. That's
Speaker 1: a just speaking broadly about um, the more or less
Speaker 1: modern era of combat. I had no idea. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that you have studies of Napoleonic and civil war
Speaker 1: fighting that revealed that given individual ability of the men, range,
Speaker 1: AMMO capacity, all that the number of enemy soldiers hit
Speaker 1: should have been well over fifty, resulting in a killing
Speaker 1: rate of hundreds per minute. But the hit rate was
Speaker 1: only one or two per minute. Uh. This high firing
Speaker 1: phenomenon continuing into World War One, and according to David
Speaker 1: Grossman and Martha Stout in the Sociopath next Door, World
Speaker 1: War two fire rates were also low. Historian and U S.
Speaker 1: Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall report that that the
Speaker 1: firing rate was fifteen, so that out of every hundred
Speaker 1: men engaged in a firefight, only fifteen to twenty actually
Speaker 1: use their weapons. In Vietnam, for every enemy soldier killed,
Speaker 1: more than fifty thousand bullets were fired, so that one
Speaker 1: of the Vietnam was of course, you know, drugs, we're
Speaker 1: being used more prevalently than in the battlefield. Indeed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's uh, it really at all. It all underlines
Speaker 1: that like one of the challenges of training soldiers, and
Speaker 1: really one of the inherent you know, monstrosities of of
Speaker 1: warfare and and and military is that you have to
Speaker 1: desynthesize soldiers to killing, and like how do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do how what is the possible ethical framework for
Speaker 1: pulling that off? And then you know, and then counting
Speaker 1: on these individuals to reintegrate into society exactly. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: so why don't we take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we can take a look at some
Speaker 1: historical uses of drug in warfare UH and whether or
Speaker 1: not those provided an opportunity for those soldiers to come
Speaker 1: back into society. Everybody, it's getting to be that time
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Speaker 1: mailing things. All right, we're back alright. So we've done
Speaker 1: an episode before on Aconite also known as wolf Spain,
Speaker 1: and we talked in that episode about how there were
Speaker 1: legends of berserker warriors that would rub aconite on their
Speaker 1: lips before they wouldental enter battle, which you know, if
Speaker 1: you've listened to that episode, aconites extremely poisonous, but it
Speaker 1: would like, you know, make their mouths foam. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they were basically going to like a death berserker rage you,
Speaker 1: making them more effective warriors and combat or at least scarier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you you see examples of of so called
Speaker 1: berserkers in we see it in the Iliad. There are
Speaker 1: accounts of berserking American soldiers. Um, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: book by a psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay titled Achilles in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and he says, quote berserking American soldiers invariably shed their
Speaker 1: helmets and their flat jackets. They had no other armor.
Speaker 1: As one veteran said, got rid of my helmet, got
Speaker 1: rid of my flat jacket. All I wanted to do
Speaker 1: was kill um. That being said, the when we think
Speaker 1: of berserkers, we tend to think of the Vikings. We
Speaker 1: think of the norseman um. This is the classic idea,
Speaker 1: the classic notion of the berserker warrior. So our modern
Speaker 1: conception of Vikings is often a bit confused. There they
Speaker 1: were far more fascinating and intricate uh culture and people
Speaker 1: than we we often give credit to. I feel feel
Speaker 1: like maybe in recent times it's gotten better. There's that
Speaker 1: Viking show that I think has little more nuanced to it.
Speaker 1: You know, I was just thinking about that. I have
Speaker 1: never watched that Vikings show. Um. But like one of
Speaker 1: the things that's creeping up in the back of my
Speaker 1: head while we're talking about this, and maybe you the
Speaker 1: listener experiencing this too, is I keep thinking about like
Speaker 1: all of the various forms of entertainment that we engage
Speaker 1: in there about warfare, not just video games, but televisions whatever.
Speaker 1: We keep coming back to. Yeah, and vikings hit me.
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones hit me, like even though that's this
Speaker 1: big fantasy. Uh, I'll watch a game Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: and they have those like big siege battles, like what
Speaker 1: was the one they had, like a huge one recently,
Speaker 1: Battle of the Bastards that was what it was called,
Speaker 1: And people went nuts for it the next day, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that was the best ever, you know.
Speaker 1: And those were not soldiers who were shooting over each
Speaker 1: other's heads, right, it was just this gory bloodfest. Um. So, anyways,
Speaker 1: the Viking thing brought to mind. There's a comic book
Speaker 1: actually that really recommend called Northlanders, and it's written by
Speaker 1: Brian Wood, drawn by a variety of artists. But it's
Speaker 1: an anthology book about Viking culture and it kind of
Speaker 1: hops back and forth through different eras of Vikings in time,
Speaker 1: showing you what it was actually like. It's like heavily
Speaker 1: heavily research stuff, and I think it's a much more
Speaker 1: nuanced look than some of the stuff we're seeing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you look back and you read some of
Speaker 1: the old Viking sagas like these are intricate stories with
Speaker 1: nuance and political entry. You know, it's not just a
Speaker 1: bunch of barbarians running all over the place, because you
Speaker 1: had on top of all that, either this was a globe.
Speaker 1: They had globe spanning travel and trade. They had culture,
Speaker 1: they had literature um and perhaps we can you know,
Speaker 1: attribute some of this to a you know, a rather
Speaker 1: outstanding and savage example of their war efforts. Not the
Speaker 1: typical Viking warrior, but this special class a soldier known
Speaker 1: as the berserker, so a berserker or a berserk. These
Speaker 1: were again Norse warriors. They were sworn to and but
Speaker 1: they believe themselves protected by the god Odin. In battle.
Speaker 1: They engaged in pre battle rituals that allowed them to
Speaker 1: enter into a frenzied state of supposed invulnerabilities, and they
Speaker 1: were able to disregard pain and wounds. And they served
Speaker 1: as shock troops. So these would be these would not
Speaker 1: be your core uh soldiers. These would be the guys
Speaker 1: that ran in first. They were they were unpredictable that
Speaker 1: threw off your enemy and then came in the more
Speaker 1: dedicated troops it's been theorized to get to the drug
Speaker 1: angle here and theory. There are a few different theories
Speaker 1: about what actually was going on with the berserkers. So
Speaker 1: one is that they utilized a mix of mead, so
Speaker 1: you had an alcohol and psychoactive hallucinogenic mushrooms, particularly the
Speaker 1: hallucinogenic fly a Garrick mushroom, is a popular choice among
Speaker 1: those who trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Others, however,
Speaker 1: have theorized that this was was more of a just
Speaker 1: a social exercise, not like the self induced groups stimuli
Speaker 1: of a of a sports team, you know, getting rampship
Speaker 1: of amped up in the locker room. Um. Also, you
Speaker 1: know it could have been just the meat that they
Speaker 1: were drinking. Uh, that's another possibility as well. But but
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's interesting to try and piece together exactly
Speaker 1: what was going on here because it was said that
Speaker 1: no iron could hurt them, that they charge and nothing
Speaker 1: could withstand them. Again, they were unpredictable. They'd how they
Speaker 1: bite their shields. Um. They wore only wolf skins and
Speaker 1: were sometimes known to fight with a blade in each
Speaker 1: hand without care for life. The wolf skin is another
Speaker 1: Another possibility is that a lot of this could have
Speaker 1: been sort of not not only amping up, but a
Speaker 1: an animistic ritual where they start to believe themselves to
Speaker 1: be more more beasts. We're talking about that in the
Speaker 1: wolf Spaine episode that they're that that was part of it,
Speaker 1: that they the association with wear wolves. Yeah, now it's
Speaker 1: it's often said that that the berserker might attack friend
Speaker 1: as well as foe because they couldn't tell them apart,
Speaker 1: and therefore they were both admired and despised because they
Speaker 1: only fulfilled half the Viking ethos. They were. They were brave, certainly,
Speaker 1: but they weren't completely loyal to their fellow Norsemen, like
Speaker 1: they couldn't be counted on in the same way you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be able to find to count on your
Speaker 1: your your your Viking, your fellow Viking warrior. They weren't
Speaker 1: wingmen right now. Another aspect here that's interesting to think
Speaker 1: of in light of possible um psychoactive drugs, is that
Speaker 1: allegedly they wouldn't remember the battle afterwards, and we're plagued
Speaker 1: by a terrible fatigue in the days that followed on
Speaker 1: that um And there's also there's another interesting theory and
Speaker 1: This comes from the work of Jonathan Shay, the psychiatrist
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier, and that's that berserkers exhibited PTSD
Speaker 1: that even in which is interesting because we think back
Speaker 1: on Vikings and medieval war and it's easy to dismiss
Speaker 1: it all and think, oh, well, just everyone was just
Speaker 1: totally okay with the horrors of combat. Killing a bunch
Speaker 1: of people a big deal. But Shay argues that, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what are we looking at here? We're looking at states
Speaker 1: of hyper arousal following depression, inactivity, emotional deadness, and vulnerability
Speaker 1: to explosive rage um. And his argument is that you know,
Speaker 1: we could be seeing some form of that here. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was a combination of organic chemistry
Speaker 1: and psychological Uh. I guess like community, like a communal
Speaker 1: experience psychologically that amped up their adrenaline. That's what I
Speaker 1: would assume is like why they were able to ignore
Speaker 1: blows and things like that was like they were so
Speaker 1: full of adrenaline that they just kept going. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: you hear you hear accounts of of athletes where they
Speaker 1: have an injury and they're able to keep going just
Speaker 1: because they're all there. They're all amped up, you know.
Speaker 1: The it's only afterwards they realized, oh wow, I really
Speaker 1: injured myself out there, and maybe I shouldn't have kept
Speaker 1: going that sort of thing. So there's that possibility now.
Speaker 1: On the psychoactive properties here, I've always wondered about that, like, like,
Speaker 1: what is the Is there really a combat advantage to
Speaker 1: being high in mushrooms in battle? It seems like that
Speaker 1: would ultimately be more of a detriment. So you and
Speaker 1: I were sort of talking about this the other day,
Speaker 1: and I thought about it a little bit more as
Speaker 1: we were doing the research. I'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: the listeners on this, because clearly I'm not an expert,
Speaker 1: but based on what we've talked about, especially about treating
Speaker 1: m d m A, right, it seems like the benefit
Speaker 1: of psychoactive drugs is that it puts you into a
Speaker 1: state that makes therapy easier, and in this case, like
Speaker 1: in the m d m A case, it makes it
Speaker 1: easier to treat PTSD. But I wonder if there's an
Speaker 1: opposite manner in which you're you become more trusting, you
Speaker 1: lose fear, and subsequently maybe you're more suggestible to being
Speaker 1: a better warrior. Maybe Yeah, it's just I guess I'm
Speaker 1: just so used to a the more sort of hippie
Speaker 1: dippy interpretation of hallucinogenics. As well as having read plenty
Speaker 1: of these accounts about, say, the use of psilocybin and
Speaker 1: treating of various emotional and psychological problems, it just seems
Speaker 1: like it's hard for me to to think about the
Speaker 1: reverse of that and see how it would be helpful
Speaker 1: that you're taking this magical property, unless it's just part
Speaker 1: of believing one is magical. It helps if you have
Speaker 1: a slightly tweaked reality. Now. The other possibility, too, is
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter what the fungus was because you're
Speaker 1: mixing it with meat. And we do see plenty of
Speaker 1: examples of people drinking to get themselves ready for violence,
Speaker 1: getting too ready for combat of some form as well.
Speaker 1: Um the in fact, we have this term Dutch courage.
Speaker 1: Have you ever come across this? So that was a
Speaker 1: new one from Boston? Okay, so that everybody talks about
Speaker 1: Dutch courage? Ok? Yeah, but rely this can This is
Speaker 1: reputed to have come from the Thirty Years War of
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. English soldiers depended on Dutch gin to
Speaker 1: stay warm and to calm themselves before battle. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, I have unfortunately heard it a few too
Speaker 1: many times before people got into fights. Yeah. Now another
Speaker 1: one and our next spent a lot of time on
Speaker 1: this one. But in our marijuana episodes we mentioned the
Speaker 1: whole hasheesh assassin thing. Uh. And this was the idea
Speaker 1: that you had, Hassana Saba again right, that whole mythology
Speaker 1: slash history. Yeah, this is the idea that you had.
Speaker 1: You had a sect of Islamic warriors fighting against the
Speaker 1: Crusaders who engaged in ritual use of hasheesh before going
Speaker 1: into battle. Um, which again sounds like yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1: And and by all accounts like there doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be any real dated to back that up. The idea
Speaker 1: that the dreaded uh um Hashasan lawyers imbued in hasheesh
Speaker 1: uh seems to have come just from the Crusaders and
Speaker 1: they had a vested interest in downplaying Muslim bravery. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Oh, well, of course they're these
Speaker 1: guys were good and good in combat. They had some
Speaker 1: sort of you know, dark secret and some sort of
Speaker 1: help from uh, from nefarious chemicals to pull it off. Huh.
Speaker 1: And of course that's that kind of demonization of marijuana.
Speaker 1: As we discussed, you would see that used later on
Speaker 1: in the United States, you know, the reefer madness interpretation
Speaker 1: of Oh, people are smoking dope and they're just going
Speaker 1: crazy with assassins. Yeah, because really it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: imagine from the yeah unless the one was I guess
Speaker 1: taking it to sort of ease the yeah. Right, it's
Speaker 1: like a tranquilizer desensitization. I guess. Um, I'd love, I'd love.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should do like an episode just on that mythology.
Speaker 1: And well, we've certainly done our marijuana episode, but um,
Speaker 1: I would be curious to see if there's any research
Speaker 1: out there about the effects of it in terms of aggression. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be that would be a worthy deep dive
Speaker 1: I think. Now, um, let's move on though, into those
Speaker 1: who we've been talking about. You know, chemicals that might
Speaker 1: somehow make you like a little crazier in combat or
Speaker 1: more efficient in combat. Uh. Yeah, but really one of
Speaker 1: the we keep coming back to one of the big calls,
Speaker 1: uh that one of the big demands in in the
Speaker 1: military is to simply keep everybody awake, keep everybody focused
Speaker 1: in doing their job. And I guess in that sense,
Speaker 1: like you know, squeeze more blood out of the stone,
Speaker 1: it is. It is very much the focus. Like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, you know, the the amount of money that
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense spends on just this is huge. UM.
Speaker 1: In one of the New York Times articles that we
Speaker 1: looked at for research on this, the author research documents
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten, by going through the Freedom
Speaker 1: of Information Act, they found that the Department of Defenses
Speaker 1: health care Services have written riddling and adderall prescriptions for
Speaker 1: active duty service members. Uh, and that these there was
Speaker 1: an increase in these by a thousand percent in five years.
Speaker 1: So from two thousand five to two thousand ten it
Speaker 1: went up a thousand percent. It originally was only three
Speaker 1: thousand service members, and then in two thousand and ten
Speaker 1: it was up to thirty two thousand service members. UM.
Speaker 1: A spokesman attributed this is a military spokesman attributed this
Speaker 1: sharp rise to the increased recognition and diagnosis of a
Speaker 1: d h D by medical providers. Which you say, well,
Speaker 1: that might be a good thing, um. And while that's true,
Speaker 1: the author notes most of those diagnoses, though, are in children,
Speaker 1: and adolescence. So is the military using stimulants to keep
Speaker 1: troops alert and awake? They definitely are, we know are.
Speaker 1: There's lots of evidence, but let's go through it. Uh,
Speaker 1: starting with a historical example, which I understand, coffee was
Speaker 1: apparently prevalent in the Civil War. So well, coffee, of
Speaker 1: course is gonna it remains prevalent pretty much pretty touch
Speaker 1: any military encounter you're talking about, and really, like so
Speaker 1: many people's lives, like like, coffee is the thing that
Speaker 1: wakes you up, keeps you focused, gives you that second there,
Speaker 1: maybe even a fourth wind, until you just you know,
Speaker 1: you can't think straight anymore. Um, yeah, I mean, because
Speaker 1: after all, coffee is a psychoactive drug. Caffeine is a
Speaker 1: psychoactive drug. Uh. And you know, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: it's everywhere and it's just we're totally used to it,
Speaker 1: it is a central nervous system stimulant um. It's and
Speaker 1: if you're a coffee drinker like like us, you can
Speaker 1: attest to it's the powerful encouragement and stamina that comes
Speaker 1: with a strong cup of joke. Yeah. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: all right, maybe this is a bit of a side tangent,
Speaker 1: but I understand that you tried for a while. What's
Speaker 1: that thing called bullet the bulletproof coffeellet the coffee butter
Speaker 1: in it? Yeah? Yeah, how'd that go? Um? I mean
Speaker 1: it went well for me. I'm not gonna I'm that's
Speaker 1: a whole separate podcast, I think to get into like
Speaker 1: the claims made by people who who who pushed that
Speaker 1: style of coffee versus what the research has to say
Speaker 1: about it. My experience with it was positive in that
Speaker 1: it it was kind of like having a you know,
Speaker 1: a full meal at a cup of coffee. And then
Speaker 1: then I wasn't like snacky. But as for any additional
Speaker 1: or certainly sort of supernatural powers gained from it, I
Speaker 1: would say they were not there. And then we ended
Speaker 1: up just sort of phasing back into using just no
Speaker 1: our normal coffee and smoothie practice in the morning. But
Speaker 1: but but but still, it kind of comes back to
Speaker 1: like if it was if it was successful, it's really
Speaker 1: because that coffee was great. It's really because of the coffee.
Speaker 1: Is uh is this powerful psychoactive studal And I imagine
Speaker 1: putting butter in your coffee probably tastes good too. It
Speaker 1: does Like some people like what would that taste like
Speaker 1: it tastes great. It's really it's really rich. Anything it
Speaker 1: tastes great. Yeah, don't be surprised when butter makes something
Speaker 1: tastes good. But in terms of like caffeine's effects on troops,
Speaker 1: you can't. You have to kind of go back to
Speaker 1: a time when caffeine was was used by everybody, but
Speaker 1: maybe it was in short supply, or supply was uncertain,
Speaker 1: or in some state of flux. And that's what we
Speaker 1: find if we look at the Civil War, the American
Speaker 1: Civil War. So author John Grinspan has a wonderful New
Speaker 1: York Times article titled How Coffee Fueled the Civil War.
Speaker 1: It was published in two thousand fourteen and still out there.
Speaker 1: It's a great read. It paints paints a fascinating picture
Speaker 1: of caffeine consumption during that conflict. So it turns out
Speaker 1: that the Union army absolutely depended on coffee. It was
Speaker 1: their their nerve, tonic, it was their sustainer soldiers attributed
Speaker 1: to their survival, their drive, and their ability to carry on. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a there's even a general, General Benjamin Butler. He
Speaker 1: considered it a decisive srategic factor. He told another general
Speaker 1: before battle in October of eighteen sixty four. Quote, if
Speaker 1: your men get their coffee early in the morning, you
Speaker 1: can hold meaning meaning if you can, if you can
Speaker 1: get them their coffee, if they can have their coffee
Speaker 1: in the morning, Yeah, you might. We might win this encounter.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be all right that it's going to be
Speaker 1: the decider. The Confederates, however, they weren't so lucky. Coffee
Speaker 1: shortages plagued them. One British observer stated that it quote
Speaker 1: afflicts the Confederates even more than the loss of spirits
Speaker 1: or alcohol. Um. Still, Union troops sound a bit like
Speaker 1: caffeine junkies uh in in Grinspan's article, just rampaging across
Speaker 1: the landscape like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.
Speaker 1: Here's my favorite quote from the article. Quote. Union troops
Speaker 1: made their coffee everywhere and with everything, with water from
Speaker 1: canteens and puddles, brackish bays and Mississippi mud liquid their
Speaker 1: horses would not drink. They cooked it over fires of
Speaker 1: plundered fence rails or heated mugs and scalding steam vents
Speaker 1: on naval gun boats. When times were good, coffee accompanied
Speaker 1: beef steaks and oysters. When they were bad, it washed
Speaker 1: down raw salt pork and maggoty hardtack. Coffee was often
Speaker 1: the last comfort troops enjoyed before entering battle and the
Speaker 1: first sign of safety for those who survived. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but like there's just something about like
Speaker 1: a good paragraph like that about food. Even when even
Speaker 1: the word maggoty hard attack, I kind of go, that
Speaker 1: sounds good. Well, you know, it's like, like I said,
Speaker 1: even though most of us don't know what it's like
Speaker 1: to engage in life or death combat, we know what
Speaker 1: it's like to have a good cup of coffee to
Speaker 1: have a bad cup of coffee. And the reason I
Speaker 1: ended up researching this was because I ran across this
Speaker 1: thing called the Essence of Coffee, which was a horrible,
Speaker 1: by most accounts, horrible industrialized coffee product that came out
Speaker 1: during the Civil War that was essentially evaporated coffee, complete
Speaker 1: with milk and sugar, and everyone just described it as
Speaker 1: this thick brown sludge is obnoxious black grease, and the
Speaker 1: Union troops just have I'm just picturing like the worst
Speaker 1: folders ever. Yeah, my grandmother, the way she drinks coffee,
Speaker 1: she takes folgers out of the can, pours it like,
Speaker 1: just dumps it into a cup, adds water, and puts
Speaker 1: it in the microwave and then drinks it black like that.
Speaker 1: And she's nineties six years old, as hard as nails.
Speaker 1: But maybe that's where she picked it up from. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, that, I think the use of coffee
Speaker 1: in the Civil War, like some ex antidotes here, it
Speaker 1: does help to sort of drive home just how how
Speaker 1: much of a game changer having that coffee can be. Like, No,
Speaker 1: nobody's arguing that the coffee is the reason the Union
Speaker 1: army one. But certainly they had access to coffee and
Speaker 1: that and and along with that, they had access to
Speaker 1: various other uh comforts and provisions that helped help give
Speaker 1: them the overall advantage. Well, like you said, I mean
Speaker 1: it's a um, every little advantage helps, right, And like again,
Speaker 1: like if we're gonna keep using this character sheet metaphor,
Speaker 1: it's like there's a plus one in some column every
Speaker 1: time you have a cup of coffee, whereas these Confederate
Speaker 1: soldiers they weren't having coffee, so they had like maybe
Speaker 1: a negative two to dexterity. Uh Okay, So this is
Speaker 1: something that I was wondering, let's get into the amphetamines use,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly prevalent today and has actually been for
Speaker 1: you know, a good while in the last century of warfare. UM.
Speaker 1: But I kept thinking while I was here, I was like,
Speaker 1: why don't they just drink a lot of coffee? Uh?
Speaker 1: And you know, I haven't taken that many amphetamines, but
Speaker 1: they are certainly far and above what you would get
Speaker 1: out of about. Yeah. There there's coffee, and then there
Speaker 1: is and then there's metamine stuff like adderall where it's Um,
Speaker 1: it's a if one is like a mild sharpening of
Speaker 1: the blade. The other is is it is a more
Speaker 1: intense like razor edge to it. I guess yeah. I
Speaker 1: kept thinking to myself, I'm like, why don't these pilots
Speaker 1: just get like a curig machine and their planes or something,
Speaker 1: you know, they wouldn't have to have these strong side effects.
Speaker 1: And so that's actually what's been going on. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Military has been making use of amphetamines since World War Two.
Speaker 1: UM Pilots in the American military are taking speed, usually
Speaker 1: amphetamines to enhance their performance. Military officials believe this is
Speaker 1: necessary to keep them alert and focused, especially on long
Speaker 1: range bombing missions. We talked about about those at the top.
Speaker 1: These are where they're flying for up to nine hours
Speaker 1: or more and it despite the potential side effects of hypertension, depression,
Speaker 1: and addiction, they still do it. Now. Usually what they're
Speaker 1: taking is decks adrene uh and it's part of a
Speaker 1: cycle where they take the speed for missions to fight fatigue.
Speaker 1: Then they take sedatives so they can get back to sleep.
Speaker 1: So they're referred to as go pills or no go pills.
Speaker 1: And to clarify, these are legal in the military. The
Speaker 1: pilots are not required to take them, but you know
Speaker 1: it helps on the missions. If they need them, they're available.
Speaker 1: No go pills include ambient just to give you an
Speaker 1: idea of what they're taking. Some some of them are
Speaker 1: also hypnotics from what I understand, well, mamban is can
Speaker 1: certainly have modly hypnotics. Yeah, yeah, uh So. The article
Speaker 1: that I looked at that gave me a lot of
Speaker 1: information on this was from Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine
Speaker 1: was published and it's called Fatigue and Stimulant Use in
Speaker 1: Military fighter aircrew during combat operations. So the authors their
Speaker 1: concern was that most of the studies that looked at
Speaker 1: stimulant use and soldiers. We're looking at sleep deprived military
Speaker 1: aviation that they were in situations that were totally under control. Right,
Speaker 1: It was just based on lab conditions essentially. Uh. So
Speaker 1: they were wondering, well, what happens when you're in combat?
Speaker 1: What happens when you throw variables at these pilots. So
Speaker 1: they asked twenty nine f one on five E aircrew
Speaker 1: participants to fill out a survey after their active combat operations,
Speaker 1: and it was about their drug use, their fatigue, the
Speaker 1: physical symptoms that they had, and so on. And they
Speaker 1: found that stimulants were used thirty five percent of the time,
Speaker 1: so not as much as we would think, but you
Speaker 1: know it's there. Uh. On average they were taking about
Speaker 1: three hours after takeoff. They concluded that the drugs decreased
Speaker 1: fatigue without significant post flights symptoms. I just want to
Speaker 1: pause and take a second, Like when I was reading
Speaker 1: this article, it didn't really seem to adequately address the
Speaker 1: variables that they were concerned with about combat, And they
Speaker 1: themselves said at the end of the article, look, we
Speaker 1: understand there's limitations to this. There needs to be more
Speaker 1: research done. Um nor does self reporting seem like the
Speaker 1: ideal way to get to the bottom of of you know,
Speaker 1: how the use is done uh and and what its
Speaker 1: effects are and whether or not there they have negative
Speaker 1: post flights emptoms. Another measure that came out of this
Speaker 1: we hadn't really heard of yet. In between missions, these
Speaker 1: hypnotic medications I referred to those are being used to
Speaker 1: induce and improved sleep. They also found that the reason
Speaker 1: that pilots were using the stimulants were because their circadium
Speaker 1: rhythm was broken, like maybe they had been woken up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night or something like that,
Speaker 1: or they were on long flights like we described earlier,
Speaker 1: or they were trying to get off of the effects
Speaker 1: of the pre flight hypnotic meds that they had taken.
Speaker 1: So these guys might have taken ambient or something like that,
Speaker 1: been woken up and then it was like, we need
Speaker 1: you to fly and do a mission right now, and
Speaker 1: so they take dexadrine immediately afterwards to try to counteract
Speaker 1: the effects of the hypnotic medications. So, as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: this isn't without controversy, despite being practiced for decades. In
Speaker 1: two thousand two, there was an incident. A lot of
Speaker 1: you may have heard of this too. Air National Guard
Speaker 1: pilot bombed and killed four Canadian soldiers by accident, and
Speaker 1: the speculation was was that they had taken dexadrine had
Speaker 1: impaired their judgment. Likewise, an Air Force investigation in found
Speaker 1: that there was a crash that killed four special operators
Speaker 1: and that that might have been caused by the pilot
Speaker 1: using ambient. So there's some concern about this whether incidents
Speaker 1: like that will repeat themselves. And then again, you know addiction.
Speaker 1: You know, like, once these guys are done, what what
Speaker 1: is this doing to their sleep cycles, to their personalities, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a like the no go and
Speaker 1: go pills, the back and forth and adding hot water
Speaker 1: because the paths too cold, and then adding cold because
Speaker 1: it's too hot. You know, you're running the risk of
Speaker 1: overflowing the bath at some point totally. So here's the
Speaker 1: big problem. Though stimulants actually strengthen learning and memory formation.
Speaker 1: This works the same way when we form long lasting
Speaker 1: memories from our strong emotional experiences. So this is the
Speaker 1: big problem. These stimulants could be increasing the risk of
Speaker 1: soldiers getting PTSD because their pathologically forming memories while the
Speaker 1: drugs are in their system of horrible scenarios. Um So,
Speaker 1: just to recap, because we've talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: on the show, stimulants release neuro epineffern in our brains,
Speaker 1: potentially enhancing our emotional memory and research into this. Do
Speaker 1: you remember on our Creepy Post episode that we did
Speaker 1: two weeks ago about the SCP we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about chemicals and memories. Well, there's lots of ways chemicals
Speaker 1: can form or erase memories. More neuro epineffrin enhances our memory,
Speaker 1: but if you add propran and al in you can
Speaker 1: block that impairing emotional memory. Remember we talked about rats
Speaker 1: in that episode. When you tested them, uh, and you'd
Speaker 1: give them propran and all, they would forget about electric
Speaker 1: traps and a maze and get electrocuted all over again.
Speaker 1: So all of this leads us to the drugs that
Speaker 1: are used to help soldiers with PTSD. But also keep
Speaker 1: in mind some of these drugs might be contributing to PTSD.
Speaker 1: So let's take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 1: let's really get into the chemistry that's being used to
Speaker 1: treat PTSD. Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
Speaker 1: and we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class. We are a history podcast that tries to
Speaker 1: look at the things that maybe we're overlooked in your
Speaker 1: history classes, maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly,
Speaker 1: maybe covered in a way that was not accurate. New
Speaker 1: episodes come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. So we already mentioned some of the more
Speaker 1: like near future forms of DSD treatment, but in terms
Speaker 1: of actual medications that are used right now to aid
Speaker 1: the treatment of PTSD, basically everything, it can be divided
Speaker 1: into three categories. So, first of all, antidepressants. These are
Speaker 1: of course medications that help symptoms of depression and anxiety,
Speaker 1: and they can also and help improve sleep problems and concentration. UM,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or s
Speaker 1: s r I medications, and the big ones here are
Speaker 1: Zoloft and paxel. Uh. Then there are more dedicated anti
Speaker 1: anxiety medications and either drugs that can improve feelings of
Speaker 1: anxiety or in stress for a short time to relieve
Speaker 1: severe anxiety and related problems. And because these medications have
Speaker 1: the potential for abuse, they're not usually taking long term,
Speaker 1: and so they're their whole host of of anti anxiety medications. UH,
Speaker 1: they fall into that category. And then another frequently used
Speaker 1: medication is a drug called praso sin or mini press,
Speaker 1: and this is if if symptoms include insomnia or recurrent nightmares. UH,
Speaker 1: this can potentially help. Although it's not spec specifically FDA
Speaker 1: approved for PTSD treatment, UM, it may reduce or suppress
Speaker 1: nightmares in many people with PTSD. Yeah, and we have
Speaker 1: talked about, like I said, you know, we've had a
Speaker 1: couple episodes where we this is one of those topics
Speaker 1: that stuff to blow your mind. I think, circles around again,
Speaker 1: over and over. Uh. We are interested in it, but
Speaker 1: it's also connected to a lot of different themes and
Speaker 1: topics that are interested in. UM. So one thing that's
Speaker 1: come up is beta blockers. They've blocked the effects of
Speaker 1: neuro epineffer and that's the propran and all I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. They've basically stopped fear conditioning. UH. In
Speaker 1: two thousand, to a psychiatrist named Roger Pittman. He was
Speaker 1: from Harvard Medical School, and he led a study where
Speaker 1: they randomly assigned emergency room patients either with a beta
Speaker 1: blocker like propran and all or with the placebo. And
Speaker 1: this was within six hours of experiencing a traumatic event.
Speaker 1: After a month, they went back to these subjects and
Speaker 1: they said, those of you that took the beta blockers,
Speaker 1: what's going on? They gave him a survey questionnaire interviews. Uh,
Speaker 1: these people felt significantly fewer symptoms of PTSD based on
Speaker 1: their emergency room event than the subjects who had not.
Speaker 1: So and and you know, go back and listen to
Speaker 1: that SCP episode. There's been lots of research in the
Speaker 1: beta blockers in memory. Uh. We also have done an
Speaker 1: episode as I referred to earlier on M D m A.
Speaker 1: See see that for a real deep dive. But M
Speaker 1: d m A trials have been used to help survivors
Speaker 1: by increasing their trust and decreasing their fear in therapy.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of other options. Like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you guys talked about tetris on another episode. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: and I encourage people don't go back and listen to
Speaker 1: that episode if you want more. But Like the basic
Speaker 1: idea is interrupting the formation and in the hard coding
Speaker 1: of traumatic memories. Like the simple version would be something
Speaker 1: traumatic happens play Tetris because because Tetris is an example
Speaker 1: of a game, an excellent example of a game that
Speaker 1: has an ability to, uh to interfere with the formation
Speaker 1: of those traumatic memories. Yeah, okay, So then the big
Speaker 1: question then is are there drugs And you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit earlier, but other drugs
Speaker 1: that make killing easier sort of the opposite of this
Speaker 1: PTSD thing. We've we've talked about some historical examples through
Speaker 1: this episode, but yeah, I wonder if it's something that's
Speaker 1: currently being developed, especially when I think about that Black
Speaker 1: Mirror episode, because we've already established that, like like fixing
Speaker 1: the soldier, addressing the mental health concerns that occur after
Speaker 1: engaging in in this kind of combat, like those are
Speaker 1: costly those uh, not only in terms of dollars, but
Speaker 1: in lives like this is it's a major issue. Uh,
Speaker 1: you get into weird ethical waters, to say the least,
Speaker 1: when you start saying, well, what have we fixed it?
Speaker 1: On the other end, what have we just made it
Speaker 1: more okay with killing, but then what are the what
Speaker 1: are the long I mean the long term effects there
Speaker 1: are potentially even more monstrous. Yeah, it does seem horrific
Speaker 1: to me, and I just I can't imagine it. It's funny.
Speaker 1: So for this episode, I watched that Black Mirror episode
Speaker 1: that we keep referring to, and now I can't think
Speaker 1: of it except for outside of Um. Okay, let's go ahead.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and enter. We can enter into a
Speaker 1: spoiler zone for that episode if you if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, uh, and and when wished to see it,
Speaker 1: go see it and then come back and check out
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. Uh. But for the rest
Speaker 1: of you will go ahead and press on without without
Speaker 1: fear of spoilers. For Men against Fire. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: episode is called Men against Fire. Uh. And the essential
Speaker 1: premises that they have what would you call it, like
Speaker 1: a like an implant, a brain plant. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that there are a few key technologies that are going
Speaker 1: on there, some sort of a brain implant um a
Speaker 1: a of contact lens that alters their visual perception. And
Speaker 1: then there's also dream management software, dream intervention software that's
Speaker 1: part of it that's controlling their dreams, pushing down traumatic nightmares,
Speaker 1: and even rewarding them with particularly pleasant sexual dreams. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so all of this is revealed masterfully over the
Speaker 1: course of the episode, very slowly. Uh. The ultimate reveal
Speaker 1: is that you think that these soldiers have been fighting
Speaker 1: like they call them roaches. You think they've been fighting
Speaker 1: like I don't know, vampires. Do You think they're must first,
Speaker 1: because there's a there's a eugenics vibe going on there.
Speaker 1: The enemy is genetically inferior and fighting them is important
Speaker 1: for the future. Uh. And and you see these monsters.
Speaker 1: You see like a firefight, and there they fight these monsters.
Speaker 1: And then uh, essentially throughout the course of the episode,
Speaker 1: one of the soldiers implants stops working and he sees
Speaker 1: that they're actually just people, but the implants are making
Speaker 1: it so that he and the other soldiers see them.
Speaker 1: They literally demonize the opposition so that it's easier to
Speaker 1: kill them, and it it uh influences their sensory systems
Speaker 1: to like so that they're not smelling blood or they're
Speaker 1: not hearing the screams of the people they're killing. Um.
Speaker 1: All this to the end of subsequently making it easier
Speaker 1: for them to to kill the enemy. And now I now,
Speaker 1: as a good Black Mirror episode does, I can't help
Speaker 1: but think about this idea in those terms hard time
Speaker 1: thinking about like a medication or chemistry. I didn't really
Speaker 1: find a whole lot that that would actually do this.
Speaker 1: The US Special Operations does have a memo that I
Speaker 1: read about outlines technology objectives that look to what are
Speaker 1: they say, quote ergogenic substance says to manage environmentally and
Speaker 1: mentally induced stress um. So they're basically looking at this
Speaker 1: as a way to and uh manage stress in the
Speaker 1: battlefield rather than after the battle. So I guess that
Speaker 1: would be somewhat similar. But I think this is like
Speaker 1: a whole another level. Yeah, I think that what we
Speaker 1: see in the episode kind of represents the long term
Speaker 1: fear that anxiety about like tinkering with these things, because
Speaker 1: for those soldiers, not only are they they tinkering with
Speaker 1: their perceptions of the battle and of war and of
Speaker 1: violence and of killing in war, they're also tinkering with
Speaker 1: their reward system. Like the final scene in the episode
Speaker 1: is him returning home and he doesn't see his home
Speaker 1: for this ruined shell that it is, and he and
Speaker 1: in fact he sees the woman of his dream on
Speaker 1: the porch waiting for him, there's actually nobody there. Um,
Speaker 1: So yeah, what when you start war is you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's part of human history and human culture.
Speaker 1: It's impossible separate war from who we are in many respects.
Speaker 1: And yet, as we've already established, like, war is not
Speaker 1: a natural thing for us. It is a traumatic experience,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a horrifying thing. And if we start
Speaker 1: trying to change who we are for war, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what are the end results? What are the ramifications there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It is obviously, like even beyond what we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with the ethical implications related to the side effects
Speaker 1: of all of these different medications and narcotics and drugs
Speaker 1: for soldier use in battle, this one, most of all,
Speaker 1: seems to have a real philosophical like question mark over it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like should we even do this?
Speaker 1: Like is it moral? Um? I think we covered Black Mirror? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. All right, So if you want to
Speaker 1: come back in, we're no longer gonna talk about Black Mirror.
Speaker 1: Let's close out. And I just want to say that
Speaker 1: based on the above of everything that we've talked about
Speaker 1: this episode. Some have proposed that there should be four
Speaker 1: ethical criteria for the use of drugs in the military,
Speaker 1: and and and these are the criteria. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe these would work, maybe they wouldn't. The first
Speaker 1: one would be that the use must be voluntary, and
Speaker 1: that seems to be the case with dexadrine, right, like
Speaker 1: they choose to use. That sounds like a good idea.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, I mean, you have situations
Speaker 1: where still where individuals can still be drafted into militaries.
Speaker 1: Uh so if there's if there's a possibility for a draft,
Speaker 1: it seems kind of ridiculous for like, you get into
Speaker 1: whole questions about why why do I have a choice
Speaker 1: in this matter? But I don't have a choice serving
Speaker 1: in the military to begin with. Absolutely, That's that's the
Speaker 1: whole candle worms itself. The second criteria would be that
Speaker 1: the medication must be safe. H third is that it's
Speaker 1: use must be in accord with medical standards. Those two
Speaker 1: are kind of connected. And the fourth is that alternative
Speaker 1: measures must be utilized first. So I guess in the
Speaker 1: example of dexadrine, it's kind of like what I was
Speaker 1: joking about earlier, like how many cups of coffee can
Speaker 1: these guys have on a nine hour flight? Before there?
Speaker 1: You know, it no longer works as an alternative. They've
Speaker 1: got to take dexadrine or else they're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: bomb the wrong location or something. Um, So I would
Speaker 1: just bring this back to what we talked about the beginning.
Speaker 1: Remember that soldiers aren't machines, and the ideal here is
Speaker 1: that they will will want to return to civilian life.
Speaker 1: So maybe there should be some kind of ethical principles
Speaker 1: in play regarding whether it's dietary supplements or or drugs
Speaker 1: or even you know, if we jump into the sci
Speaker 1: fi scenario of some technological implants or something, what the
Speaker 1: long term effects of that are going to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think in general, like just in and this
Speaker 1: is me speaking, but as far as military use in general,
Speaker 1: I I love that fourth ethical criteria. Alternative measures must
Speaker 1: be utilized first, and I think the more we explore that,
Speaker 1: the better off will be. Yeah. Well, I mean, given
Speaker 1: how much money the Department of Defense is spending on this,
Speaker 1: I would imagine they're exploring every avenue that's available. So
Speaker 1: we'll see, we'll see how this evolves. In the future.
Speaker 1: I'm curious though, Uh you are, audience. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of you out there have experience with PTSD or
Speaker 1: family members who have um gone to war come back
Speaker 1: from war. Uh so what's your take on all of this?
Speaker 1: Like the better living through chemistry for a warrior? How
Speaker 1: how how should we approach that going forward in the future. Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: you can let us know. First of all, visit us
Speaker 1: on stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find all our social media channels there, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,
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Speaker 1: in touch with us let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: You can also find all the stuff that we put
Speaker 1: out on a regular basis, podcast, videos, articles, you name it.
Speaker 1: Those are all on Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the old facton way, if you just want to send
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