British troops 'kept awake on smart drugs': How MoD has spent up to £800,000 on more than 12,500 doses of controversial stimulant modafinil over the last eight years

[dalsingh101]

EXCLUSIVE: British troops 'kept awake on smart drugs': How MoD has spent up to £800,000 on more than 12,500 doses of controversial stimulant modafinil over the last eight years

• The MoD has admitted to buying over 12,500 'stay-awake' pills from 2013 to 2021
• Modafinil, a controversial psychostimulant, is a prescription drug for narcolepsy 
• Compared to 'drinking 20 cups of coffee', modafinil can tackle combat fatigue
• Long-term side effects include arrhythmia and a weakened immune system 
• Purchases of modafinil peaked in 2001 as British troops entered Afghanistan 

The MoD has been buying thousands of doses of a 'smart drug' that could keep soldiers awake in combat for 40 hours straight.  

In response to a MailOnline Freedom of Information probe, the MoD admitted to having bought more than 12,500 pills of modafinil from 2013 to 2021, at an estimated cost of up to £800,000 based on drug prices published by NICE. 

Modafinil, a stimulant prescribed to stop narcoleptics falling asleep during the day, has a similar effect to 'drinking 20 cups of coffee', according to one doctor. 

Unlike caffeine, which can leave coffee-drinkers with jitteriness, modafinil has few short-term effects on users, although long-term use of the 'smart drug' can cause arrhythmia, high blood pressure and a weakening of the immune system.

The controversial psychostimulant has rocketed in popularity over the last two decades, with growing numbers of students and high-flying businesspeople seeking to buy modafinil illegally to boost their productivity. 

 

 

Modafinil, a stimulant prescribed to stop narcoleptics falling asleep during the day, has a similar effect to 'drinking 20 cups of coffee', according to Dr Judith Leech, Medical Director at the West Ottawa Sleep Center in Canada

 

Modafinil is rumoured to have been the inspiration for the fictional wonder drug taken by Bradley Cooper's character in the 2011 film Limitless, which allowed him to use 100 percent of his brain and tap into superhuman abilities.

Non-prescription sale of modafinil was banned in the UK in 2016, and the tablets are only available with a prescription for diagnosed cases of narcolepsy and other chronic sleep disorders.   

Yet reports suggest university campuses are awash with such mind-altering substances, with 29 percent of students admitting to having experimented with smart drugs of one kind or another, according to a 2019 survey by student newspaper The Tab.  

How does modafinil work? 

Modafinil, sold under the brand name Provigil, is a central nervous system stimulant.

The mechanism through which the drug operates is not fully understood, although it is known to impact on the hypothalamus, a gland in the brain that controls hormones.

Modafinil makes chemical messengers, like adenosine and monoamines, more available in the spaces between brain cells.

That reduces sleepiness, with the drug also being linked with improvements in decision-making, flexibility, learning, memory and even creativity. 

Side-effects of the drug can include agitation, anxiety, arrhythmia, nausea and vomiting.

Modafinil can also interfere with contraceptive pills and can increase the risk of congenital malformations when taken during pregnancy. 

 

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Although illegal, modafinil is still available online to pill junkies looking for a productivity boost - often from foreign-based distributors.

In a report for New York Magazine, an analyst and trader on Wall Street, named Peter Borden, vividly described the 'freaky sensation' he got after popping modafinil to ratchet up his work performance.

He said: 'I sensed it was blood actually moving to the optic nerve. 

'Your eyes start to feel very sort of engorged, and your awareness comes to the front of your face.

'My senses sort of shifted to the visual, and my auditory sense went down. 

'Sounds didn’t even register. 

'It was like walking around on a winter day when it just snowed. 

'It was very easy to stay visually focused.

'I didn’t take as many breaks; I didn’t get as frustrated; the stuff came out with fewer errors', Mr Borden said. 

The US military have long been interested in using pharmaceuticals to prevent sleepy soldiers from making blunders on the battlefield, with an early documented experiment on helicopter pilots using Dexedrine, an ADHD drug, carried out in 1995.

 

 

The findings, published in the journal Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, found after 34 hours without sleep the military pilots could perform complicated manoeuvres in a simulator with 'no adverse behavioural or physiological effects'.  

A US study published in 2012 gave Black Hawk helicopter operators modafinil as they carried out a series of flights and other evaluations over a 40-hour period without sleep, concluding that the pills allowed the pilots to better 'maintain alertness' and 'cognitive function' throughout the ordeal. 

'It's just one of these misuses, in my view, of a medical application', said Dr Judith Leech, Medical Director at the West Ottawa Sleep Center in Canada. 

Speaking to The Ottawa Citizen about the use of modafinil in the military, the doctor continued: 'You could probably get the same thing with 20 cups of coffee, but you wouldn't like it.' 

 

'...What I use in somebody whose life is totally impaired by a brain chemistry disorder is different from what I think you should use in an army person or other healthy people.

'It's bad to use drugs for bad reasons. There's a reason why we get sleepy. 

'Sleep helps the brain store memories and recuperate from work, and helps the body build its immune system. 

'And you deprive yourself of those things if you use a stimulant to overcome it.'

An investigation by the Guardian published in 2004 found purchases of Provigil, a brand name of modafinil, started in 1998 and peaked at 5,000 pills delivered in 2001 - the year allied forces entered Afghanistan.

The second largest order, for more than 4,000 pills, came in 2002, when troops entered Iraq.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10707005/Thousands-smart-drugs-bought-MoD-soldiers-awake-40-hours-straight.html

[HSD]

A modern day Pervitin. Most squaddies are no strangers to taking hard drugs, I’m sure they’ll love this stuff.  

[dalsingh101]

11 hours ago, HSD said:

A modern day Pervitin. Most squaddies are no strangers to taking hard drugs, I’m sure they’ll love this stuff.  

Just seems like charlie to me? 

[GurjantGnostic]

13 minutes ago, dalsingh101 said:

Just seems like charlie to me? 

Different mechanism entirely it looks like. More like aderol or meth. I'll look at the chemical compound after work. 

[dalsingh101]

12 hours ago, HSD said:

A modern day Pervitin. Most squaddies are no strangers to taking hard drugs, I’m sure they’ll love this stuff.  

 

‘Pilot’s Salt’: The Third Reich Kept Its Soldiers Alert With Meth

For a while, the stuff seemed to be “the ideal war drug.”

By Megan Garber

MAY 31, 2013

 

 

 

A bottle of Pervitin, dating from around 1940. The packing reads: “Alertness aid,” to be taken “to maintain wakefulness”—but, it continues with an exclamation point: “only from time to time!” (via Der Spiegel)

In 1972, Heinrich Böll won the Nobel Prize for literature. But before he became a writer of novels, short stories, and essays, Böll was a writer of letters. During his early 20s, which also happened to be during World War II, he was conscripted into the German military. And as he fought, serving in France, Romania, Hungary, and finally the Soviet Union, Böll corresponded with his family back in Cologne.

The letter he sent on May 20, 1940, contained not just an update, but a request. “Perhaps you could obtain some more Pervitin for my supplies?”

Just one of these pills, Böll explained, was as effective at keeping him alert as several cups of coffee. Plus, when he took Pervitin, he was able to forget, temporarily, about the trials and terrors of war. He could—for a while, at least—be happy.

Pervitin was the early version of what we know today as crystal meth. And it was fitting that a German soldier would become addicted to the stuff: The drug, Der Spiegel notes, first became popular in Germany, brought to market by the then-Berlin-based drugmaker Temmler Werke. And almost immediately, the German army physiologist Otto Ranke realized its military value: Not only could the methamphetamine compound keep fighters (pilots, in particular) alert on little sleep; it could also keep an entire military force feeling euphoric. Meth, Spiegel puts it, “was the ideal war drug.”

And it was, as such, put to wide use. The Wehrmacht, Germany’s World War II army, ended up distributing millions of the Pervitin tablets to soldiers on the front (they called it Panzerschokolade, or “tank chocolate”). The air force gave the tablets to its flyers (in this case, it was “pilot’s chocolate” or “pilot’s salt”). Hitler himself was given intravenous injections of methamphetamine by his personal physician, Theodor Morell. The pill, however, was the more common form of the drug. All told, between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million three-milligram doses of Pervitin were manufactured for the German army and air force.

 

News of meth’s powers, unsurprisingly, spread. British papers began reporting on German soldiers’ use of a “miracle pill.” Soon, Allied bomber pilots were experimenting with the drug. Their tests ended quickly, though; while the soldiers who used pilot’s salt were able to focus on their flying in the short term … they also became agitated, aggressive, and impaired in their judgment over the long term.

The Germans would notice the same side effects—the side effects (thanks, Breaking Bad!) we know so well today. Short rest periods, it turned out, weren’t enough to compensate for long stretches of wakefulness. Some soldiers who used the meth died of heart failure; others ended up committing suicide during psychotic phases. Many others simply became addicted to the stimulant, leading to all the familiar symptoms of addiction and withdrawal: sweating, dizziness, hallucination, depression. Leonardo Conti, the Third Reich’s top health official, moved to limit use of the drug among his forces. He was, however, unsuccessful.

As late as the 1960s, in fact, the Temmler Werke was supplying the armies of both East and West Germany with its Pervitin pills. And it wasn’t until the 1970s that West Germany’s postwar army, the Bundeswehr, finally removed the drug from its medical arsenal. East Germany’s National People’s Army wouldn’t follow suit until 1988.

Via Der Spiegel, hat tip Digg.

 

Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilots-salt-the-third-reich-kept-its-soldiers-alert-with-meth/276429/

[GurjantGnostic]

55 minutes ago, dalsingh101 said:

 

‘Pilot’s Salt’: The Third Reich Kept Its Soldiers Alert With Meth

For a while, the stuff seemed to be “the ideal war drug.”

By Megan Garber

MAY 31, 2013

 

 

 

A bottle of Pervitin, dating from around 1940. The packing reads: “Alertness aid,” to be taken “to maintain wakefulness”—but, it continues with an exclamation point: “only from time to time!” (via Der Spiegel)

In 1972, Heinrich Böll won the Nobel Prize for literature. But before he became a writer of novels, short stories, and essays, Böll was a writer of letters. During his early 20s, which also happened to be during World War II, he was conscripted into the German military. And as he fought, serving in France, Romania, Hungary, and finally the Soviet Union, Böll corresponded with his family back in Cologne.

The letter he sent on May 20, 1940, contained not just an update, but a request. “Perhaps you could obtain some more Pervitin for my supplies?”

Just one of these pills, Böll explained, was as effective at keeping him alert as several cups of coffee. Plus, when he took Pervitin, he was able to forget, temporarily, about the trials and terrors of war. He could—for a while, at least—be happy.

Pervitin was the early version of what we know today as crystal meth. And it was fitting that a German soldier would become addicted to the stuff: The drug, Der Spiegel notes, first became popular in Germany, brought to market by the then-Berlin-based drugmaker Temmler Werke. And almost immediately, the German army physiologist Otto Ranke realized its military value: Not only could the methamphetamine compound keep fighters (pilots, in particular) alert on little sleep; it could also keep an entire military force feeling euphoric. Meth, Spiegel puts it, “was the ideal war drug.”

And it was, as such, put to wide use. The Wehrmacht, Germany’s World War II army, ended up distributing millions of the Pervitin tablets to soldiers on the front (they called it Panzerschokolade, or “tank chocolate”). The air force gave the tablets to its flyers (in this case, it was “pilot’s chocolate” or “pilot’s salt”). Hitler himself was given intravenous injections of methamphetamine by his personal physician, Theodor Morell. The pill, however, was the more common form of the drug. All told, between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million three-milligram doses of Pervitin were manufactured for the German army and air force.

 

News of meth’s powers, unsurprisingly, spread. British papers began reporting on German soldiers’ use of a “miracle pill.” Soon, Allied bomber pilots were experimenting with the drug. Their tests ended quickly, though; while the soldiers who used pilot’s salt were able to focus on their flying in the short term … they also became agitated, aggressive, and impaired in their judgment over the long term.

The Germans would notice the same side effects—the side effects (thanks, Breaking Bad!) we know so well today. Short rest periods, it turned out, weren’t enough to compensate for long stretches of wakefulness. Some soldiers who used the meth died of heart failure; others ended up committing suicide during psychotic phases. Many others simply became addicted to the stimulant, leading to all the familiar symptoms of addiction and withdrawal: sweating, dizziness, hallucination, depression. Leonardo Conti, the Third Reich’s top health official, moved to limit use of the drug among his forces. He was, however, unsuccessful.

As late as the 1960s, in fact, the Temmler Werke was supplying the armies of both East and West Germany with its Pervitin pills. And it wasn’t until the 1970s that West Germany’s postwar army, the Bundeswehr, finally removed the drug from its medical arsenal. East Germany’s National People’s Army wouldn’t follow suit until 1988.

Via Der Spiegel, hat tip Digg.

 

 

Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilots-salt-the-third-reich-kept-its-soldiers-alert-with-meth/276429/

Yeah...just what a bunch of sex crazed tranny nazis needed...meth.  lol. 

[dalsingh101]

Just now, GurjantGnostic said:

Yeah...just what a bunch of sex crazed tranny nazis needed...meth.  lol. 

We don't seem to have much meth here in the UK. Don't know much about it. I remember people taking 'speed' decades ago, but that's about it.  

 

 

[GurjantGnostic]

1 hour ago, dalsingh101 said:

We don't seem to have much meth here in the UK. Don't know much about it. I remember people taking 'speed' decades ago, but that's about it.  

 

 

Same thing. Meth, speed, crank, shit, dope, glass, tina, crystal. 

[HSD]

On 4/13/2022 at 11:25 AM, dalsingh101 said:

Just seems like charlie to me? 

Coke is a confidence inducing stimulant that seems to amplify what ever exists in a person’s head. That’s why some people get violent, paranoid, horny after taking it or more homo/bi/paedo tendencies come out etc. It’s effects tend to wear off fairly quickly. Most of the people I’ve come across who do it tend to be a bit narcissistic.

This stuff you posted is an amphetamine like Adderall. It reduces manic behaviour and increases focus, without all the weird affects of cocaine. At £64 a pill though they would have been better off buying Captagon lol. 

[dalsingh101]

12 hours ago, HSD said:

At £64 a pill though they would have been better off buying Captagon lol. 

How would Captagon differ from Ritalin? 

 

Just did a quick search, it looks like the jihadis drug of choice? 

[HSD]

On 4/22/2022 at 12:06 PM, dalsingh101 said:

How would Captagon differ from Ritalin? 

 

Just did a quick search, it looks like the jihadis drug of choice? 

Well Ritalin is a basic ADHD medicine which is legal, Captagon has a more complex structure as it’s an amphetamine. It’s also banned in most places apart from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. 

[dalsingh101]

33 minutes ago, HSD said:

Well Ritalin is a basic ADHD medicine which is legal, Captagon has a more complex structure as it’s an amphetamine. It’s also banned in most places apart from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. 

Thanks. I think Ritalin is:

piperazine derivative methylphenidate.