Troops and military health care providers told Military Times that these drugs are also being prescribed, consumed, shared and traded in combat zones, despite some restrictions on the deployment of troops using those drugs.
The Times investigation of records obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency showed $1.1 billion was spent on common psychiatric and pain medications from 2001 to 2009, and the use of psychiatric drugs had increased 76% overall, since the start of the current wars.
Orders for antipsychotics rose by more than 200%, and annual spending more than quadrupled, from $4 million in 2001, to $16 million in 2009. Orders for anti-anxiety drugs and sedatives increased 170%, and spending rose from $6 million to about $17 million. Annual orders of anticonvulsants had a 70% increase, with spending more than doubled, from $16 million to $35 million.
Antidepressants orders had a 40% gain, but an overall decrease in spending, from $49 million in 2001 to $41 million in 2009, due to the arrival in recent years of cheaper generic versions of the drugs.
Collateral Damage
During the same time frame, from 2001 to 2009, the Army's suicide rate increased more than 150%, from 9 per 100,000 soldiers to 23 per 100,000, and the Marine suicide rate increased about 50%, from 16.7 per 100,000 in 2001, to 24 per 100,000 marines in 2009.
In a June 20, 2009, commentary for Huffington Post titled, "Antidepressants Cause Suicide and Violence in Soldiers," Dr Peter Breggin, author of "Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Violence, Suicide, and Murder," dismisses the theory that the increased use of prescription of drugs in the military is a response to increased depression among the soldiers.
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