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1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis. 2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. Thi
by htag 4y ago
1. "Drug use" probably includes soft drugs like cannabis.
2. Basically any diagnosis of a mental health condition, like ADHD, will block military service. This is true even if symptoms are well managed without medication. The rise of diagnosis of these conditions combined with digital records means a lot of people are prohibited to join due to mental health that would have been overlooked in previous decades.
3. This serves as the official excuse for why recruitment numbers are down. IMO recruitment numbers are down because Iraq/Afghanistan was such a shitshow.
- bnjms 4y agoRe: #2 that’s ridiculous. Diagnosis like ADHD might as well be diagnosable personality traits.
- hotpotamus 4y agoADHD is the weirdest diagnosis out there in my opinion. I know I can certainly concentrate better when I'm taking amphetamines of one sort or other. Does that mean that I have ADHD or does it just mean that that's what amphetamines do?
- bnjms 3y agoMy belief is that amphetamines help everybody focus and the powers that be needed a story that’s just so to rationalize giving drugs to kids. But the benefit for people with ADHD is greater than the benefit to people with normal amounts of concentration/executive function. What I want to know is do people “without adhd” also feel the sense of peace and calm with a cessation of the need to constantly fidget and move?
- mkolodny 4y agoDoes "drug use" include coffee? Alcohol?
- htag 4y agoCoffee: no Alcohol: It includes a level of alcohol abuse, but I'm not sure how they draw the line.
- mkolodny 4y agoGood question. I'd say if you're drinking during work, it's a problem. If you're not, hopefully they have some way of proving you're abusing it rather than making unfounded accusations. It seems like people will believe anything these days.
- AardvarkAnon 4y ago[flagged]
- neilv 4y agoHow can you gauge sentiment of a broad group from a self-selecting sample?
- Aeolun 4y agoAll the ones commenting on youtube are the drug using overweight people you mean? The ones that actually wanted to serve “the country” already enlisted.
- htag 4y agoIt's bad statistics to assume a sample is representative of a population unless the sample selection method is very strong. Comments left on a specific youtube video says almost nothing about the population of young Americans.
- pengaru 4y ago> Confirming 3, everyone needs to take a look at the comments on the latest recruitment ad on YouTube to gauge the sentiment of young American men towards the government and military: Because we all know the vocal minority commenting on youtube videos is a sample-set free of biases.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cowmoo728 4y agoThat YouTube video specifically appears to have been raided by 4chan so I would be careful drawing conclusions from the comments.
- AardvarkAnon 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- primitivesuave 4y agoRegarding #1, you can get a waiver for past cannabis use if you weren't a habitual user (by self admission) and never faced any legal action (distribution, possession, etc) in regards to cannabis. If you have ever distributed any drug (even so far as splitting the cost of drugs with a roommate) you cannot enlist. The enlistment screeners are surprisingly effective at getting people to admit things they did over a decade ago. If you admit to ever using LSD or psychedelics, even one time, you will be automatically disqualified from serving in the military or law enforcement (go figure).
- defrost 4y agoOddly enough if you joined the British Army in days of yore you might have found yourself ordered to take LSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs ( Likely also true for other countries, eg: USofA, etc )
- htag 4y agoInteresting footage of US soldiers doing drills on LSD. It's really strange that someone learned about LSD and decided to see how well people can march in a parking lot while under the influence. Whoever designed the experiment really didn't understand LSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbSEU8Hv4lA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbSEU8Hv4lA
- Gud 4y agoThe whole point of that experiment was to see how a military unit behaves on acid. Why shouldn’t they be marching the soldiers?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoIs this a thing that requires testing? Do they have units run drills on all common recreational drugs? I could see some merit in evaluating stimulants, but what is the expected gain from most anything else?
- pram 4y ago2 has never mattered that much I don’t think. I enlisted in the Air Force in 2005 with an adhd AND depression diagnosis and I went in as Aircrew. I’m sure it required a waiver but it wasn’t an obstacle at all during the process. I got cleared at MEPS with no issues. So many people I knew had waivers for random things I think it’s kind of a joke they’re saying they have to “lower” standards now or whatever.
- ryandrake 4y agoNumber 2 is also putting a dent in the supply of airline pilots. The FAA has a very large list of mental disorders it considers disqualifying, and ADHD is one of them. It’s nuanced, in that it depends on things like whether you require medication or not, but if you ever in your life had any kind of diagnosis, even mild anxiety, you need to disclose it on your medical application and they will dig in to it.
- devmor 4y agoIt is completely understandable IMO. As someone with severe ADHD I would not want to be entrusted with the operation of sensitive military machinery in a situation in which I may run out of medication. I won't even drive my car if I don't have adderall or at least the ability to self medicate with a high caffeine dosage.
- rcarr 4y agoI think this kind of screening is probably a good thing. Do you really want to entrust hundreds of lives to a pilot who struggles to concentrate? Or one who has depression and might be looking at that nearby mountain and thinking “I could just crash this plane into it and it would all be over”. I’m not sure these things ever really get cured, all it takes is a few bad life events (e.g maybe their spouse dies and they stop taking medication) and you’re at risk of a relapse
- nothrowaways 4y agoStill, China is in much better shape, if you compare general population.
- arroz 4y agodoesn’t really matter when you have nukes Also, China doesn’t consider mental illness a thing (depression, bipolar disorder and so on) And they are not transparent
- nothrowaways 4y agoI can agree about the nuke. Physique doesn't really matter
- friend_and_foe 4y agoI think the decade long wars in the middle east are a huge part PR wise, but theres more to it. The military is a shitshow. The messaging alienated it's core recruitment base, namely white and black teenagers and young men. It alienates young American men in general, but those demographics in particular are historically the core of America's fighting force. Having to balance domestic recruitment PR to be politically correct while also wanting to reach tough young men and entice them is an impossible task. It's a giant jobs program. People in the military can tell you, it's devolved from just being rules/procedures based chain of command, to being a full blown Brazil-esque (the movie) busybody bureaucracy.
- throw__away7391 4y agoFor what it's worth, the software industry is also a shitshow.
- JeremyNT 4y ago> Having to balance domestic recruitment PR to be politically correct while also wanting to reach tough young men and entice them is an impossible task. Can you explain what you mean by this? I feel like you're referring to something obliquely but I don't have the context.
- 93po 4y agoi assume he's saying people who join the military are racist misogynists and because the military can't appeal to this anymore, people don't want to join anymore
- friend_and_foe 4y agoYou seem upset, as if what you said is blatantly false. I wouldn't say racist (?? Black and white men fighting together are racist?) mysoginists, but tough men that aren't posterboys for your designated driver would probably be a good description. If you want a competent fighting force, you have to appeal to tough young men. You don't do that by putting a dude in a dress on your promo material, to put it crassly. Men don't want to go into an environment supposedly to "get shit done" only to have to file paperwork and tippytoe on eggshells with everything they do or say. You don't have to like it but these are the facts. The military gets weaker when you alienate the most able bodied in your society, it's pretty straightforward.
- xk_id 4y agoThere is nothing particularly “soft” about cannabis. As mounting modern evidence shows, it suppresses REM sleep (and by extension the consolidation of procedural learning undertaken during the day) and it lowers executive function, concentration and motivation. These effects also persist for some time after use is stopped, even if they are eventually reversed.
- rcarr 4y agoMinus the concentration and motivation parts, so does does coffee, tea and other caffeine based products but you don’t see anyone clamouring to ban those.
- carlmr 4y agoThroughout history there were many coffee bans, so it's not like nobody thought about it.
- rcarr 4y agoI worked as a barista for years so I know a fair amount about coffee but the historical legality and prohibition of it is actually something I know very little about. Think I am going to do some Wikipedia browsing this afternoon!
- tim333 4y agoIt's "soft" relative to stuff like cocaine, heroin, crack, meth etc which muck you up more. It's probably kind of a par with alcohol in terms of problems caused.
- zaccusl 3y agoOn par? I mean, alcohol will literally kill you if you drink too much or have prolonged exposure. Alcohol makes you sick and fat. If anything, alcohol is far worse than cannibas. Time will tell what effects it has on the wider population, but keep in mind cannibas use has been pretty wide spread for centuries and has been legal in many places in the US for over a decade.