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CounterPunch
February
10, 2003
Speed Bombers
This is Your
Military on Drugs
by
MARK DONHAM
I don't know about anyone else, but to me, there
was a little factoid that slipped out of the news media recently
that was really a bombshell, only it hasn't been treated that
way, which to me is a mystery but worth a look. This factoid
came out as a result of the incident in which two national guard
pilots from my home state Illinois "accidentally" killed
4 Canadians and hurt a bunch more in a "friendly fire"
incident in Afghanistan during our supposed "rout"
of the Taliban. These pilots (as are most all such pilots apparently)
were high on drugs! "Go pills" to be exact. We just
know them as "speed."
"This is your brain on drugs!"
Who can't forget the TV PSA of the guy cracking the eggs in the
hot skillet and calming reciting that memorable line? You bet
your life that "speed" was and is included in the word
"drugs" as it appears in that sentence. Now it's "if
you use drugs, even a little, you're supporting terrorism."
Again, without a doubt the writers of this TV PSA mean "drugs"
to include "speed." So are we to conclude that either
the military is supporting terrorism or the government has a
secret supply of these illegal drugs that don't come from terrorists?
Think of the vehemence of the "war
on drugs," and how we have built and are maintaining a "prison
industrial complex," (my home region Southern Illinois '
economy is now prison-based, for example) as Jesse Jackson aptly
calls it, largely based on arrests for possession of drugs, and
how our freedoms are being quashed to wage this war. When I think
of the fear and paranoia that I have suffered just because I
wanted to grow a couple cannabis plants on my own land for use
in my own home, and knowing how much stronger and dangerous "speed"
is than cannabis, I am filled with more disgust and anger. Yes,
to me the revelation that our government is funding our military's
illegal drug habits while funding prisons for me if I should
get caught with the same substance is particularly outrageous.
In the last few weeks, as this factoid
has sifted through my mind, I have tried to pinpoint exactly
what outrages me the most. I went back in my memory to my first
encounter with "speed." I was a freshman in 1970 at
Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, living in Olson
hall. Olson hall was almost a symbol of the expansion of the
Illinois State Teacher's college system into a state university
system. In the late 50s through the 70s big bucks flowed into
the Illinois State Teacher's colleges to build dorms and all
kinds of buildings in anticipation of the big flow of middle
class kids like me striving for a university degree leading to
a good job and security for life. There was a wives' tale that
Richard Nixon had come to WIU once and called it "the Harvard
of the Midwest." Not! Just read Kurt Vonnegut's essay about
his night in Macomb. Macomb did not then and does not now present
any kind of permissive or liberal atmosphere. In fact, it's probably
about as conservative a place as you'll find in a state university
town in Illinois. That's the context of my recollections and
the foundation of my outrage.
No one else from my high school was going
to WIU. When that fact was combined with the fact that you HAD
to live in the dorms as a freshman, (someone had to pay for those
buildings), I had no choice but to check the "I don't care
who I get put with in a dorm room" box on one of the many
forms I had to fill out to go. My roommate was Michael John,
from Brookfield, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. (Yes, where the
zoo is). It was the random collision of small town Southern
Illinois and suburban Chicago in 1970. Needless to say, there
were differences between our views of what was routine and normal
in life. But this also was during the Vietnam War, the Beatles,
Timothy Leary, the Grateful Dead, etc. "Drugs" were
part of growing up. Suburbia had them long before they were widespread
in the rural areas, this is what I learned from Michael John.
It is a comedy unto itself the details
of how Michael John corrupted my innocent world, and that isn't
the point of this story. However, there is relevance to the subject
of this essay. I recall a day after we had lived together for
a month or so. I was in the dorm room with him. We shared a dresser.
He was laying on his bed when I walked in the room from classes.
Black Sabbath was playing on the record player. I put my books
down on the desk and sat on my bed.
Michael John asked me how things were
going. I told him how my classes mostly sucked and how I would
never be tricked into registering for another 8 am class. He
told me to look in the third dresser drawer. I said, "that
's one of yours." He said, "open it." I walked
over and opened it. The drawer was literally full of little white
pills. Each one had a white "X" etched into it. He
asked me if I had ever tried any "white cross." I
didn't know what he was talking about, but I did come to learn
that he was talking about "speed." White cross - the
most common form of "speed" or amphetamine- and he
had hundreds of tablets and he was selling them cheap. Being
roommate, and being the small town boy that I was, Michael John
was anxious to corrupt me even more. He wryly smiled and told
me to take some and try it sometime.
Of course, I was trying to be cooler
than your average small town hick student. I was letting my hair
grow long, wearing colorful T-shirts, I had even tried smoking
pot. But this was my first encounter with "speed."
I took a few and put them in my drawer. He explained to me that
you could stay up all night if you took one. I started to ask
other acquaintances that I had met what they knew about it. No
one seemed to know a lot about it except that it helped you stay
up all night and that people used it to study for finals. The
night before my next big test, I opened the drawer, looked at
one of the pills, picked it up, looked at it again, then went
out to the fountain and took it. It didn't take long and I was
buzzing. I was amazed. I didn't get tired. I stayed up all night
like it was nothing. I felt good - not intoxicated high like
booze or even pot, but a nice high energy buzz that just kept
me going, feeling good, positive, alive, and awake. I wondered
where this little old drug had been for me all my life.
However, I was reminded over and over
that it was illegal - by various means. I always snuck around
with them. Hid them. I wasn't hooked or anything. Only took them
during finals and all night parties. Ok, so the crashes were
a little harsh. They only lasted a day or two. I tried to stay
to myself and avoid my friends as I tended to be a little depressed
and crabby. But when it came to needing an all night cram before
a final, staying up late for a party, or even just shacking up
with your girlfriend in your dorm room all night, there was nothing
better.
I would come to find out that white cross
wasn't the only kind of speed available - it was just the cheapest
and most available. There were also Christmas trees - capsules
that were half green and half red, black beauties - capsules
that were all black, and these large light yellow "speed"
tablets. These doses were much greater than the average white
cross. You could expect to be up for a couple days before crashing.
Yeah, you paid in the end, but the trip there was great. And
believe me - I wasn't the only one doing it. It was readily available
and it was common practice.
But as I started to say - I knew from
the very first time that I laid eyes on Michael V's drawer full
of white cross in the fall of 1970 that this was contraband.
My flirtations with speed only lasted a couple years and I gave
it up. Fear of being busted and crash fatigue wore me down. I
just had the feeling after a "speed" rush and its unavoidable
crash was over, that this had been hard on me. But I have never
forgotten the rush from good speed, although it has been close
to 30 years since I felt it.
But speed hasn't left society as a black
market commodity. Not by any means. How much press have we had
here in the rural Midwest (and across the country) in last several
years about people stealing anhydrous ammonia from fertilizer
tanks, buying large amounts of Sudafed, and concocting them in
kitchen labs to make what is commonly referred to as "meth."
How much money are the cops getting to root out the "meth
labs?" I don't have the figures, but it has to be significant.
Yet, what is "meth" but methamphetamine?
Amphetamine is speed. Basically, meth labs are cheap ways to
make speed, because people like the way it makes them feel, and
it can help them keep up with the schedule of today's world,
or forget about it's stresses and failures. It's a cheap and
effective high - no doubt about it. But make no mistake about
it - the war on drugs is aimed firmly at meth labs, and probably
rightly so. Anyone that would try to break into an anhydrous
ammonia tank is probably a sandwich short of a picnic anyway.
But also, make no mistake about it - methamphetamine is "speed."
Perhaps not the exact same formulation as what our pilots are
getting, but likely very close and triggering the same reactions
in the body - a.k.a. "This is your brain on drugs."
If you or I was caught with one of the Air Force "speed"
pills in our pockets while driving a car, it is unimaginable
the legal problems you would face, especially if you killed someone
while you were doing it.
But no one is mentioning the crashes
that these military people are also experiencing after coming
down off the drugs. Are they getting enough time to chill out
between drug episodes? What are the health and psychological
effects of this? Are pilots the only military folks on drugs?
Could this be contributing to the domestic violence crisis within
the military? So many questions, so few answers.
Is this the epitome of hypocrisy? It's
ok if you are an Air Force pilot (or maybe a marine) whom needs
help staying awake so you can kill and destroy more effectively
to take drugs. The military can buy large amounts of drugs and
nothing is said about supporting terrorism. But if you are a
college student, who needs to stay up to cram for an exam, then
you should be put in jail for violating our drug laws and derided
for supporting terrorism - "even just a little." That's
the message I get from this, and it both confuses me and makes
me angry. The government owes the people more of an explanation
about this than what we have gotten, and again the mainstream
press is missing the boat by not investigating more.
Yes, this is the perfect symbol of the
hypocrisy of the right wing. It's ok to bend their rigid moral
standards when power and military force are at stake, but when
individual's freedom, rights, and enjoyment are at stake, oppress
the people and slap harsh penalties on them for the very same
actions your military folks take. This is a government that is
incapable of self-control and self-policing. And this is just
one example of such contradictions. This factoid has exposed
the deep falsehoods and rhetoric surrounding the war on drugs,
which is now more than ever a war against integrity, justice,
and compassion.
Mark Donham
lives in Brookport, Illlinois. He can be reached at: markkris@earthlink.net.
Today's Features
Linda Heard
Powell
at the UN: Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
Anthony Gancarski
Peggy
Noonan, Space Case
The Columbia and the Manufacture of Tragedy
Robert Fisk
You Wanted
to Believe Him: Powell Does Beckett
Robert Jensen
Powell
at the UN:
Smoking Guns and Big Guns
William Hughes
Colin
Powell's Big Flop
Ali Abunimah
Dissecting Powell's Speech:
Hearsay and Old Allegations
Phyllis Bennis
Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
to Colin Powell
Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the War Game
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February
1 / 2, 2003
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