Combat drugs and psychostimulants on the arming of the US Army

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

As we remember from a school biology course, testosterone synthesized in the testes is an amazing substance. Improving metabolism, gaining muscle mass quickly, increasing the pain threshold, reducing fatigue - these are just some of the bonuses that testosterone gives to the body.

Not surprisingly, many athletes use testosterone esters as a doping drug. For this reason, in the US military, the idea was born to conduct a large-scale study on the effect of the sex hormone on the combat effectiveness of military personnel. The project was named Optimizing Performance for Soldiers: Androgen Therapy for Biomedical Performance Enhancement.

In the open information there are data on 128 volunteers who will regularly receive doses of testosterone "from the outside" under the supervision of doctors. To complete the picture, the experimental soldiers are supposed to be fed dry rations in full accordance with combat conditions. A couple of days of hunger strikes are also waiting for the subjects in order to simulate the environment or some other extreme situation on the battlefield. To obtain complete and reliable results of such a large-scale biomedical study, about half of the volunteers will be injected with saline, that is, a placebo. The program of the project includes a lot of physical activity - running on simulators, squats, repeated passage of the army test for physical fitness and much more. In total, the entire test cycle will take about one and a half months. The goal is to determine how testosterone will enable a person to overcome extreme combat conditions. Monitoring the condition of the fighters will be multifaceted: here and analysis of blood biochemistry, and psychological tests, and muscle biopsy.

Researchers from the US Army Environmental Medicine Research Institute suggest that the sex hormone will keep muscles from "burning" during fasting and high physical exertion, and will increase the tone and endurance of fighters. It is good that the United States remembers the consequences of excessive enthusiasm for hormonal therapy and assures about the moderate use of testosterone in the army of the future. According to doctors, the novelty will be used only in extreme conditions and only in strictly metered quantities.

Overdose leads to inhibition of the natural production of testosterone in the male body with all the ensuing consequences: memory loss, depression, general lethargy, increased risk of death from heart attack and stroke, diabetes mellitus, kidney stones. In the case of chronic overdose, complete sexual dysfunction and the development of secondary female sexual characteristics occur. Separately, it is worth recalling that one of the methods of chemical castration of pedophiles is just the introduction of a horse dose of testosterone esters, which actually completely kills the glands responsible for the synthesis of this hormone.

Will American medical researchers be able to find the line here when testosterone is still harmless? And if they can, then who will rule out the situation when a fighter at a halt after a many-day battle does not inject himself a double or triple dose of a magic substance?

But testosterone is not the only means to "modify" the Pentagon fighters. It is also planned to involve in the trials lutein, which is actively advertised, in particular, in Russia. The test subjects in this case are fighter pilots who experience severe overloads in flight. Excessive values of g-forces can narrow the field of vision of pilots, and in some cases even "extinguish" it. It is the pigment lutein, according to the Pentagon doctors, that is able to push back this fatal overload threshold for the pilot's eyes.

Innocent fatty acid Omega-3, which will be introduced into an experiment to increase the resistance to stress of fighters, also came into the field of view of the testers.

And if the last two substances in an experienced doctor can only cause a smile and memories of omnipotent homeopathy, then testosterone injections can be fraught with consequences.

From a historical perspective, the Germans were among the first to take biochemistry into the army. In this they were assisted by an extremely developed chemical industry and a sea of professional chemists. The famous "Pervitin", which was a common drug from the category of methamphetamines, entered circulation in the late 30s.

It is safe to say that with the psychostimulant Pervitin, the Third Reich took France - in total, the troops received about 35 million doses of the drug before the campaign. This was, without a doubt, one of the main components of the entire blitzkrieg strategy. Only one tablet of "Pervitin", according to the soldiers, replaced liters of very strong coffee. After taking pervitin, albeit for a few hours, all worries disappeared and happiness came.

By the way, the French soldiers did not stand aside and dabbled in coca with hashish, but, of course, on a much smaller scale. On the Eastern Front, Germany's massive drug use also brought tactical benefits. So, a military doctor of one of the units of the Verhrmacht wrote:

“When the soldiers started falling into the snow and saying that they wanted to die, I decided to give them pervitin. After half an hour, almost everyone felt much better. They stood up and announced that they were ready to go into battle."

This whole story was at thirty degrees of frost, as well as in the environment, which eventually managed to break through in a drug frenzy. Methamphetamine became a typical one-day weapon for the Nazis for a decisive dash. After a few years, the soldiers became tough drug addicts and went out of order forever.

Japan also used almost limitless drug resources to boost the morale of the army. Dainippon Pharmaceuticals stamped nearly a billion pills of Philopon methamphetamine, which was ingested by half-dead factory workers, sentries, kamikazes, and post-war prostitutes employed by the American invaders.

"Methedrine wins the Battle of London!" was the headline of the 1941 British Evening News. However, even before the war, bomber crews in England were given the drug Benzedrine, which, like Methedrine, belongs to the class of amphetamines. By the most conservative estimates, the Allied army consumed more than 72 million psychostimulant pills during the war. Moreover, Britain shared part of its chemical wealth with the Soviet Union. Benzedrine was distributed to servicemen of the American army during the landing in Normandy, as well as on long bombing flights over Germany.

The countries involved in World War II took their peoples off the drug needle for many decades. And here such testosterone innovations from the USA!

Obviously, the slogan of the Pentagon doctors, albeit in a much emasculated form, was the statement attributed to Adolf Hitler when he removed the moral responsibility from doctors: “Possible complications (from the use of drugs) and even losses should not bother the conscience of doctors. The situation at the front requires our full commitment …"