eli@spdcc.com (Steve Elias) (06/26/89)
From: eli@spdcc.com (Steve Elias)
[repost from sci.med]
jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
!It has been widely reported that the soldiers responsible for the Tienanmen
!Square massacre were injected with amphetamine to make them more willing to
!kill. Is this really believable, or is it simply wishful thinking by the
!media seeing the chance to add a drug horror story to an already dramatic
!enough event?
!
!I know amphetamines have been employed by the military to keep soldiers alert
!through long battles (at least by the Nazis on the Eastern Front and the US in
!Korea), but the use proposed here is quite different.
!
!I've only taken amphetamine once and it just made me concentrate ferociously
!on a Schubert string quartet. I once shared a flat with a speed freak; not an
!experience I would much like to repeat, but he and his pals were about as
!violent as gerbils.
!
!So: is there any evidence that these alleged injections would have any moral
!effect? Particularly on first-time users who didn't know what the stuff was,
!so placebo effects wouldn't operate either?
!
![ this should probably go to alt.drugs and sci.military
! too, but I can't post to either group from here ]
!--
!Jack Campin * Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
!Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND. 041 339 8855 x6045 wk 041 556 1878 ho
!INTERNET: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: jack@glasgow.uucp
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--
...... Steve Elias (eli@spdcc.com);(6178591389);(6178906844) {}
[mod.note: I suggest that interested readers subscribe to sci.med
and follow this topic there. Not that it's inappropriate here, of
course; just that you're likely to get better information there.
- Bill ]