Stay alert, stay alive…

Early in the war, British Air Force troops discovered a supply of Pervitin when searching a downed German plane. Pervitin, a methamphetamine, had been tested on military volunteers and concentration camp prisoners but little thought was given to side effects. The Germans found the drug could keep soldiers awake for days, enhance their confidence, and boost morale. During WWII, two hundred million doses of Pervitin were issued to German pilots and infantrymen.

After Pervitin was discovered in the downed plane, the British government approved 72 million doses of Benzedrine, a related amphetamine, for military use. It wasn't long before Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower authorized the use of 500,000 Benzedrine tablets for the 1942 landing of U.S. troops in North Africa. Amphetamines became a necessity from the military point of view. Because pilots needed to stay awake for extended time periods, the military frequently gave the drug to men flying long-range missions. By 1945, the U.S. military had dispensed around 500 million amphetamine tablets.

U.S. servicemen called amphetamines by many names: bennies, speed, pilot’s salt, crank, tank chocolate, and whites. Regular users of these highly addictive drugs suffered from heart palpitations, hallucinations, paranoia, extreme physical crashes, used poor judgement in high-stress situations, and often experienced psychosis. To come down from amphetamines, soldiers frequently needed barbiturates to sleep.

Today, we have long recognized the extreme consequences of addiction to methamphetamine, but the dangers of these drugs were unknown to medical personnel in the 1940s. Militaries on both sides of the war produced "super soldiers" who returned home with an addiction to amphetamines. After the war, pharmaceutical companies widely advertised these stimulants, and doctors regularly prescribed them for weight loss, low energy, depression, fatigue, and as a decongestant.