Drug "overdoses" among U.S. soldiers in Europe, 1978-1979. I. Demographics and toxicology

The files of the Casualty Branch of the Military Personnel Center, Europe, Seventh Medical Command, and of the U.S. Army's Tenth Medical Lab were used to examine the epidemiology of "overdose" deaths of U.S. Army soldiers in Europe during the calendar years 1978 and 1979. A total of 91 cases were so identified; i.e., death was the direct result of injection, inhalation, or ingestion of an intoxicant, legal or illegal. Not included were deaths caused by trauma or drowning while intoxicated, deaths from disease secondary to chronic drug or alcohol abuse, and deaths due to chemicals not widely viewed as intoxicants. The monthly distribution of cases showed a spring peak similar to that reported by several studies of U.S. civilian drug deaths. No such similarity was apparent in terms of victim characteristics and circumstances, with soldier victims being nearly always male, equally often White as Black, 20-24 years old, very rarely suicides, and nearly always using heroin and/or alcohol. "Control" data from circumscribed subgroups of nonvictim European soldiers, however, show that victims did not differ markedly from the junior enlisted population from which they came, as least on the variables generally available in personnel and medical records.