Flipping Out
Israel is struggling to deal with about 2,000 former soldiers every year who abuse hallucinogenic drugs until they become psychotic.
Every year thousands of soldiers are discharged after two or three years of compulsory service in the Israeli Defense Forces. Many of these men and women have seen combat, and some suffer ongoing psychological problems as a result.
About 30,000 cash in their discharge checks and travel the world, most of them heading to the Indian subcontinent to experiment with drugs. Approximately 2,000 soldiers will “flip out,” or suffer from drug-induced psychosis that requires them to be institutionalized. Flipping Out tells the rarely reported story of the price that Israeli society is paying for the constant state of war in which it finds itself.