the us airforce readily hands out amphetamines to its combat pilots. this was shown on a recent documentary about the subject. pilots in iraq were "popping them like candy".
they had to sign a letter of voluntary acceptance. if they didn't sign it they would or could be taken off the flight line. the feeling was that they would be taken off flying duties.
the powers that controlled it said that it managed the fatigue of long flights. all of the arguments put forward (not directly) were answered with the point of view that it did no harm and raised the bar on performance. the fact that some of these "high" pilots were responsible for attacking their friends, and killing them didn't seem to rate.
they must know something we don't. then again maybe we should all be given uppers. we could do away with cao 48 and say we we will operate on a fatigue based management system.
how "high" can you fly???