Watch Now: Super Soldiers? The Ethics of Drugs in Warfare

In the run-up to World War Two, the Nazi armed forces began distributing a new drug to their soldiers. Pervitin – an early form of crystal meth – could keep combatants awake for as long as 50 hours, enabling them to march and fight for days on end. It could just as easily kill them: men who took the drug could die from heart failure, experience hallucinations, or suffer depression.

This state-sanctioned methamphetamine use is just one example of how drugs have been deployed on the battlefield throughout history and across cultures, and how badly they can harm the soldiers, pilots, and sailors who use them. Fighters take drugs not only for energy – like the “go pills,” stimulants used by American combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s – but to ready themselves for battle or to numb the traumatic experience of warfare.

As the pharmaceutical industry develops new drugs and the nature of war itself changes, Perry World House will explore the medical ethics of soldiers taking drugs to enhance their performance, and the legal consequences of using substances and hallucinogens in warfare.

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