Soldiers Depression, U.S. Military Mental Illness Drug Use

WASHINGTON - Of the soldiers who returned from missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, 300,000 of whom reported suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, and depression.

To care for these patients, U.S. military doctors are more and more use of drugs for mental illness. The amount is higher compared with previous wars, it was reported Rhonda Pence, Press TV correspondent in Washington.

The more the extent of use of these drugs have anything to do with issues like drug dependency, fatal accidents, and suicides among soldiers.

The availability of prescription drugs also contribute to increased drug abuse, especially opium, among the soldiers. In addition, stock piling is also a cause of drug overdose cases among American soldiers.

Non medical use of drugs among the military also have fatal consequences. Last year, five U.S. soldiers who claimed to have drank Hasish kill three civilians in Afghanistan.

Recent data revealed that military spending to buy drugs mental illness were $ 280 million by 2010, double the total in 2001.

For example, the U.S. Air Force's senior soldier, Anthony Mena. Towards the end of his life, Mena hardly ever leave the house without carrying and backpack full of drugs.

Upon his return he was from the second assignment in Iraq, Mena complained of back pain, insomnia, anxiety, and frequent nightmares. Doctors later diagnosed he was suffering from PTSD and prescribed psychiatric drugs, liquor, and narcotics.

Instead of recovering, she became more suffering Mena, this is the case with depression. "I was almost desperate," said Mena told doctors in 2008 as seen in the medical records. "I should die in Iraq," he added.

Mena, 23, died at his apartment in Albuquerque on July 21, 2009, five rather than after leaving the job in the Air Force for medical reasons. A scientist found eight types of toxic drugs in the blood Mena, including three types of anti-depressant drug, a sedative type, a type of sleeping pills and two types of painkillers.

According to paramedics, Mena did not commit suicide. That claimed his life not because of an overdose of drugs, but so many drugs taken.

After ten years of treating thousands of wounded soldiers, the military medical system was flooded with prescription drugs that are sometimes deadly results.

These drugs, and narcotic pain relievers also, many other problems associated with the increase, including drug addiction, suicide, and fatal accidents.

Based on military reports of suicide soldiers were released last year, stated that one-third of U.S. soldiers drank at least one drug.

"The use of prescription drugs increases," he stated in the report. The drugs have a role in one-third of 162 cases of suicide by active soldiers in 2009. While from 2006 to 2009, 101 other soldiers died of drug poisoning.

"I am not a doctor, but I know that fewer and fewer drugs are prescribed, then we will only get better," said Deputy Chief of Staff Army Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, who led the fight against suicide.

Awareness about the dangers of excess drugs to make the Department of Defense improve oversight of drugs and restrict their use.