Fighter Pilots Flying on Amphetamines

Destructive Effects Ignored by Air Force

Fighter pilots are routinely prescribed dangerous amphetamines for long-distance overseas flights, and there are no plans to research alternative methods of handing the problems of sleep deprivation on solo missions, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force. “These pilots have to fly alone for up to 36 hours,” Donna Ragan of the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General said. “In some cases, amphetamines are the only way they can stay awake. There are no plans to change this policy.”

The startling admission comes soon after the passing of the “Drug-Free Workplace” amendment for fiscal year 1989, which calls for all federal agencies and all government contractors to have a written policy which forbids the use of certain drugs, including amphetamines. If they refuse, they risk losing their job.

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci was strongly in favor of the proposal when he testified in June 1988 before a House-Senate committee, calling for defense contractors to provide drug counseling, referrals, voluntary testing and possibly mandatory testing for the use of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, PCP and amphetamines.

The defense secretary urged that mandatory testing be required for workers with national security clearances and those in jobs “where the safety of the product is involved.” He said the contractor community should provide a “user-unfriendly environment” for workers who use drugs.

But a spokesman for the Defense Department denied that there was any discrepancy between Carlucci’s position and the practice of prescribing amphetamines to pilots, despite the dangers of the drugs, not only to the pilots and the aircraft, but also to national security.

“The Air Force has the right to determine its own policy,” Defense Department spokesman Tim Downey asserted. “Yes, [then President] Reagan has called for a drug-free workplace, but there are extreme scenarios in which exceptions would have to be made. The use of specific drugs is determined by the flight surgeon, not the secretary of defense. If you don’t agree with this, that’s your right. But the policy stands.”

Drug Testing

One of the results of a series of experiments conducted at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to determine the effects of sleep deprivation was a decision that drugs were not the answer to getting soldiers through long periods without sleep. Subjects take the Performance Assessment Battery (PAB) prior to beginning the experiments. Blood tests are taken to determine the general state of health before sleep deprivation begins.

The use of amphetamines by the Air Force promises to become a heated issue as the debate over government responsibility for the much-publicized “War on Drugs” continues.

In May, based on President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 executive order that all federal agencies design drug-testing programs for their employees in “sensitive” positions — those with special clearances in security, safety and health positions — 42 federal agencies produced detailed plans calling for randomly testing a pool of 345,528 federal workers in sensitive jobs for illegal drug use.

The Justice Department announced its plans to test nearly 1,800 workers at its headquarters in Washington, releasing at the same time copies of a 15-page booklet for employees that outlines the program. It will involve urinalysis tests designed to detect marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines and PCP.

The program requires the department to take disciplinary action, ranging from a written reprimand to dismissal, against an employee who is found to be using illegal drugs. If a second test detects continued drug use, the worker must be dismissed.

The Executive Office of the President announced that it will annually test 12 percent of the 2,462 employees in sensitive jobs, including all 370 employees at the White House.

Under the current plans, virtually everyone would be subject to testing at the National Security Council, the Office of the Vice President, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of Policy Development, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Part of an agreement the Reagan administration reached last summer with Congress to allow the plans to proceed required that drug-testing programs in major departments and agencies must all move forward at once and meet uniform standards.

But getting all parts of the government to agree on what those uniform standards will be has proven difficult at best.

Some critics have charged that the programs are too limited, and that if the proponents were truly concerned about health, safety and productivity, they would pay more attention to prescription drug abuse, particularly the widespread abuse of psychiatric drugs, which is a far more prevalent — though less publicized — situation than illicit drug abuse.

Kevin Stach, an aide to Representative Robert Walker (R-Pa), who was one of the chief proponents of the “Drug-Free Workplace” amendment, said that prescription drug abuse was not the focus of the bill. “That just wasn’t the major problem we were trying to handle,” he said. The bill “only covers illegal drugs,” he added. “There is no provision for prescription drugs.”

Sleep Deprivation

But an amphetamine is an amphetamine, whether it is obtained illegally or by prescription, and even within the different branches of the armed forces there are disagreements as to whether such a semantic distinction should be made.

It is the problem of how to handle sleep deprivation over extended periods of time that the Air Force is seeking to resolve with amphetamine use. The Army, however, disagrees that the use of dangerous drugs is the answer.

The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research has been conducting a series of experiments intended to resolve the unique physical and psychological problems encountered under certain military conditions, referred to as Continuous Operations (CONOPS) and Sustained Operations (SUSOPS).

A recent wire story which reported that the Army plans to give amphetamines to its soldiers in the near future had the telephone lines at the institute jammed with calls from angry citizens and congressmen for days, but a spokesman for the institute denied the allegations, calling the article “inaccurate at best.”

Army Says No

“Psychiatry and its multibillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry promotes drugs as the answer to every difficult situation an individual may encounter.”

“We are not supplying, do not intend to supply, and never have supplied amphetamines to soldiers,” Paul Klein, director of public affairs for Walter Reed, said. “In fact, the conclusion of our studies at this point is that the best counteraction for lack of sleep is sleep. There isn’t a damned thing we can do that’s going to help more than finding a way to let that guy sleep. And if we can find a way to do that, we can solve a lot of problems.”

Col. Gregory Belenky, chief of the department of behavioral biology at Walter Reed and director of the studies referred to in the story, flatly denied the allegations of amphetamine use by soldiers in a letter to Freedom.

“Drug abuse is a serious national problem,” he wrote. “It would be unfortunate if the Army were contributing to this. The story is, however, inaccurate. The Army is not considering giving amphetamine, or any other stimulant drug, to soldiers. Specifically, the Army considers amphetamine a drug of abuse with potentially disastrous consequences for mental health if used for a long period of time.”

There was one laboratory study conducted by the Army using amphetamines, but it was done under strict medical supervision using volunteer civilian subjects, he said. Amphetamine was given once to each subject and studied as a benchmark against which to measure the effectiveness of other means of sustaining performance under conditions of little or no sleep, such as caffeine and napping, he explained.

“From the beginning,” Belenky added, “amphetamine was considered absolutely unsuitable for use by soldiers in combat. The researchers who conducted this study believe there are no safe and effective stimulant drugs. They recommend sleep as the only remedy for fatigue in combat, as, in their view, sleep alone safely and effectively restores mental performance.”

As possible solutions, the Army’s plans include reorganization of schedules and increasing the number of soldiers so they can be broken up into shifts.

Colonel Mike Groves, deputy director of Walter Reed, confirmed the institute’s drug-free position. “The Army has no intention of putting its soldiers on amphetamines,” he said. “There are just too many dangerous side effects to make it workable. The idea is to get away form using drugs by adopting programs that will allow the soldiers to sleep.”

Klein pointed out that the Army developed the original drug testing procedures in the 1960s, when it was believed that the drug problem was unique to the Army: “Now we know that the problem is much more widespread, and our tests are the ones being used in other agencies. If we’re that concerned about drug abuse, why would we feed drugs to our own soldiers?”

Fighter Pilots on Speed

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, an organization in Washington, D.C.

While the Army is adamant about moving in the direction of drugless solutions to the problems of sleep deprivation, the Air Force is just as adamant about its right to prescribe amphetamines to its long-distance pilots to stay awake.

Colonel Russell Rayman, chief of the Aerospace Medical Consultants Division of the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General, justified the practice when he appeared on “Good Morning America” in July with Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, a Ralph Nader organization in Washington, D.C.

“Generally,” he said, “it would be used for fighter-type pilots that are flying fighter aircraft on long missions, particularly over-the-water missions, such as crossing the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic.

“These mission will frequently last anywhere from one to three days, with intermediate stops en route. It’s a long mission, and it’s an extremely fatiguing mission, and because of the danger of fatigue, which we would consider an added threat to flying safety, under certain circumstances we would prescribe medication to counteract any potential fatigue.”

Asked what kind of medications he was talking about, Colonel Rayman admitted that he was referring to amphetamines.

Dr. Wolfe pointed out that the Air Force’s practice of giving such dangerous drugs to its fighter pilots is totally unacceptable form the standpoint of national security.

“Imagine the scenario of a fighter pilot flying one of these planes, having a hallucination, and pressing the wrong button, particularly if there is a bomb on board,” Wolfe said. “We think that this kind of behavior, which is totally unacceptable on commercial aircraft — a pilot would be fired or put on the ground forever if they did something like that — shouldn’t be allowed in the military.”

Effects of Amphetamines

But such a scenario is all too probable, considering the documented effects of amphetamines. According to medical texts, amphetamines can cause delirium and hallucinations within 24 hours of taking them. Violent and aggressive behavior is common, and restraints are often required.

Amphetamines have a number of other highly dangerous side effects, particularly for a pilot responsible for a multimillion-dollar aircraft which may have a store of 500-pound bombs under its wings.

Distorted perception of people’s faces can occur, as well as suspiciousness that can turn into extreme paranoia, causing the individual to take violent action against what are perceived as “enemies.” Users often hallucinate that bugs or vermin are crawling under their skin, a sensation that could prove deadly for a tightly strapped pilot alone in an aircraft.

Furthermore, these effects do not necessarily end when the pilot finishes the flight. Delusions from amphetamines can continue for a week or more, and occasionally last for over a year.

Amphetamine Addiction

“Unfortunately, the psychiatric concept of mind-crippling drugs as a solution to all of our problems is a hoax — a life-threatening hoax.”

Air Force spokeswoman Ragan insisted that “the pilots are not in danger of becoming addicted to amphetamines, because they are tested in advance for their susceptibility to the drug and those who have a low tolerance are not allowed to take them.”

But Gary Smith of Narconon, a network of centers which utilize the drug rehabilitation technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard, disagrees.

“Amphetamine addiction is insidious,” Smith said. “The dependency begins immediately, from the first day a user takes it. He can’t sleep that night, so he is tired the next day. Then he takes it again to stay awake the next day, and the addiction nightmare begins. For an Air Force pilot, this could lead to tragic consequences.”

He pointed out that it is the psychiatric industry that has indoctrinated the medical profession with the idea that there is a drug to cure every problem. “Psychiatry and its multibillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry promotes drugs as the answer to every difficult situation an individual may encounter,” he said. “Unfortunately, the psychiatric concept of mind-crippling drugs as a solution to all of our problems is a hoax — a life-threatening hoax.”

Smith said amphetamine abuse is a factor in at least 80 percent of the drug users who come to Narconon.

Some form of speed — primarily Dexedrine, Benzedrine or methamphetamine — is the drug of choice for 30 to 40 percent of those who come in.

“Furthermore, all the cocaine addicts who come to Narconon use amphetamines as a substitute when they can’t get cocaine. The effects are almost identical,” he explained.

“Amphetamine use causes a rapid physical decline. Quite simply, it tears up the body,” he said. “It is the combination of reduced physical strength and the lack of sleep for an extended period of time that brings on psychosis. People using it just flip. Hallucinations, paranoia — these are the primary manifestations.”

Government Hypocrisy

“It is clearly a dangerous practice,” a spokeswoman at the Health Research Group said. “Amphetamines have been shown to impair performance markedly. It is total hypocrisy on the part of the government. On the one hand, they’re saying they’re going to test people because it’s impairing their performance, and on the other hand they’re letting the Air Force give it to their pilots.”

There is no indication that the Air Force is even considering other alternatives at this point, but with mounting pressure from both the government and the private sector, it may soon be forced to find other solutions.