The news that an Australian soldier serving in Afghanistan may have overdosed on drugs comes as no surprise to addiction experts. An inquiry will take place into how the soldier suffered a suspected overdose almost a week ago. A bottle of pills and white powder were found in the soldier’s room.
The soldier was found unconscious and unresponsive in his room in Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province last Friday and is still in serius condition in a military hospital in Germany. Australian soldiers already face random drug testing, but now there will be testing of the entire Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan.
Dr. Alex Wodak, director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, says drug use was a major problem for Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the U.S. military is also seeing an increase in drug addiction among soldiers.
"Life is unbearable," Wodak said. "You don’t know whether you’re going to be alive in 10 minutes’ time or not."
"Life has very few pleasures; you’re very uncomfortable, it’s either very hot or very cold, the food’s pretty awful, the ever-present smell of death and you see some of your closest buddies die before your eyes. So life is really unbearable and heroin’s cheap," Wodak said.
Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world’s opium supply, the main ingredient of heroin.
