WendyMcElroy.com

The next several years of the drug war should be particularly interesting due to an almost undiscussed phenomenon: the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have or will be returning from years of serving in one of the world's (if not the world's) foremost regions for the production of hard drugs -- Afghanistan from which approximately 90% of the world's opium flows. This young generation of Americans were and are being thrown into a situation that swings from incredible stress to utter boredom; they are away from their families and other support/restraint networks; although loneliness must be a constant, romances with fellow soldiers and 'natives' are not sanctioned. And, yet, every soldier over there must know an easy source of relief from the stress, the boredom, the alienation and loneliness: plentiful and dirt-cheap drugs.

A factor that drove the explosion of drug use in the last decades of the 20th century was the return of veterans from the Vietnam War -- from the Golden Triangle region, equally notorious for drug production Drugs in Vietnam were plentiful and commonly used by American soldiers who faced many of the same stresses as those currently in Afghanistan or Iraq. Many Vietnam vets returned with drug addictions or, at the very least, a far more casual view of drug use than when they departed.

Arguably, the situation with soldiers now returning will be considerably worse for several reasons. For one thing, the war on drugs back home is far more draconian than it was in the 70s. For another thing, the conflicts have gone on longer than the Vietnam War and more soldiers have been revolved in and out of drug-laden areas. Despite Obama's hollow assurances, there is no sign that Americans will leave the region any time soon and, so, hundreds of thousands more soldiers may well be sent like kids into a candy store -- only the store is stocked with drugs. Added to this is an explicit Taliban strategy to provide drugs to American soldiers just as they provided them to Soviet soldiers when they were occupying the region. The return of heroin-addicted soldiers was key to the precipitous rise in hard drug use that still haunts Russia. Arguably, the serious drug problems with which Russia still grapples began in Afghanistan.

An added factor: there is an unusually high number of severely wounded soldiers returning. Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are able to use protective gear and ride in tanks, unlike the soldiers who hiked in Vietnamese jungles and rode down the rivers. Moreover, medical care has improved dramatically since the late '60s and early 70s, which means many soldiers who would have died decades ago will live...but they will do so in constant pain and/or disability. Severely wounded and disabled veterans are likely to need the sort of strong pain medication that is highly addictive. It would be wonderful to believe that their pain could be eased by legalized marijuana that is comparatively non-addictive and benign but the widespread legalization of marijuana is politically improbable in the near future.

As the war on drug cartels in Mexico and countries southward heats up, America is ignoring an equally significant factor in the drug war: its own returning sons and daughters, not to mention the fresh ones it is sending off. The army actively denies addiction is happening, of course, with the likes of Dr. Ian McFarling, Acting Director of the Army Center for Substance Abuse Programs, claiming that "less than one half of one percent of soldiers in Iraq have tested positive for illegal drugs. "That's a testament to the kind of leadership we have is that they believe that that's not the place that they should be doing drugs." The organization Narconon calls addiction "the soldier's disease." And it nothing new. Some historians estimate that something akin to a 1/2 million soldiers became addicted (mostly to morphine) during the Civil War with its terribly high number of wounded. And, yet, military officials would have the public believe that this war, conducted in the 'bread basket' of drug production, is different. The fresh-faced patriots serving in the poppy fields would never smoke or snort or stick a needle in their arms...like a high percentage of all other American soldiers have done in other wars.

In the face of official denial, it is difficult to get current or solid information. Added to this difficulty is the fact that it will take 5 or 10 years for the Afghan-Iraq veterans to filter through the military medical hospitals onto the streets and into the various treatment programs or agencies.

As always, public ignorance is aided and abetted by the media, which is almost silent on this issue. Indeed, the foregoing post is prompted by one of the very few articles I've seen that even touches on veterans' addiction: For Addicted Veteran Regulation is Enemy The subtitle highlights yet another reason the drug war will be deeply impacted by returning vets: "Government balks at covering treatment for painkiller dependency." The article follows the story of a vet who needs expensive pain medication to function and, yet, has to beg for assistance from the military even to cover his meds. And, no, I am not arguing for tax-paid drug programs; I am pointing to the fact that the government will abandon the drug-addicted and drug-dependent veterans, leaving them to cope for themselves individually or to become society's problems.

This particular cost of war is yet to be realized. When the bill on this one comes due, it will be huge and the payment will be unpredictable.