US Pentagon Forced To Track Fentanyl In Ranks After Years Of Silence, 330-Plus Fatal, 15,000 Non-Fatal Overdoses

The U.S. Pentagon is now required to compile data on drug overdoses within the military following the passage of the annual defense policy bill in December. Previously, overdoses in the military were not systematically tracked. 

The Defense Department (DoD), reported Military.com, will now maintain information such as what substances were involved in an overdose, whether doctor-prescribed drugs were involved and how many overdoses are deemed intentional or accidental. 

The law also requires the DoD to make naloxone, a life-saving medication that can reverse opioid overdoses, available "on all military installations" and in "each operational environment."

Media Pressure Pushes Military Officials To Pay Attention

Pressure to combat the rising number of overdose deaths in the military increased following a 2022 report done by Rolling Stone that exposed a series of overdose deaths at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in North Carolina. This then prompted Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers to push the Pentagon for more information.

What They Found

More than 330 service members died of drug overdoses in the five years before 2022. Ten percent of those deaths occurred at Fort Liberty alone, while 15,000 troops suffered non-fatal overdoses, the majority of which were accidental. 

“Real security means guaranteeing that members of the military and their families can get resources and life-saving treatment necessary to stop the overdose crisis in its tracks,” said Markey about the new law, in a statement emailed to Military.com last fall.

The Pentagon determined the number of military deaths involving fentanyl doubled between 2017 and 2021, mirroring escalating fatalities nationally as the drug has flooded the country. 

The Army lost 127 soldiers to fentanyl between 2015 and 2022, reported The Washington Post in June 2023. That total is more than double the number of Army personnel killed in combat in Afghanistan over the same period.

Killer Substance When Abused

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. A synthetic opioid, fentanyl has been available since the 1960s, mostly for extreme pain in cancer patients. Now, it’s the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Photo: Mark Herlihy, Hanscom Air Force Base, public domain