Soldiers sent to Iraq despite failing drug tests

[Ilsa]

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-213101-2394774.php

Some members of the Iowa Army National Guard were sent to the Middle East despite failing drug tests, Army officials acknowledged.
Neither Maj. Michael Kuehn, the state Guard’s judge advocate, nor Maj. Dan Grimm, the Guard’s alcohol and drug-control officer, immediately knew how many people tested positive or in which units they are serving, the Des Moines Register reported in a copyright story Thursday.

The routine urinalysis administered to Iowa Army National Guard troops at Camp Dodge last spring and summer screened for marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, PCP and other illegal substances, Grimm said. The tests are normally shipped overnight by courier to Hawaii, where a lab tests hundreds of samples at a time. The results are usually reported back by e-mail within a few days, Grimm said.

Kuehn said the results were not communicated to unit commanders until after the troops had left the state for camps across the country, where they trained for deployment to Iraq.

(Snip)

“I doubt there would be very many soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq with access to drugs, or alcohol for that matter.” Besides, Stover said, “living in close proximity to other soldiers, you’ll know if someone is drunk” or high. (snip)

I wonder if anyone is having problems with withdrawal in Iraq (depending on the habit)? I guess they need bodies in uniform, and to hell with their own rules about fitness for duty. I've never been in the military, so I don't know how this sort of thing works in reality.
(edited for content.)

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Tested positive for Angel Dust and they're still sending them?

I guess they don't mind our soldiers running naked thru the streets of Tikrit...

[DUreader]

2. Soldiers won't have access to drugs in Afghanistan?

lol

[smallprint]

4. yeah, what a joke

the country is one big poppy field

[kimchi]

12. Off topic--I've never seen opium in my life until last month...

And my brother's friend had a huge amount recently. I am 37, and of the 12 people who knew he had it, only one person had ever seen it before.

You can call it a conspiracy by the government if you want, it won't offend me, and I might just agree with you.

I feel sorry for the Afghanistan people and their rule by the Taliban and druglords, but I'm sticking with American made hydroponic. So glad the pResident is keeping drugs off our streets (sarcasm).

[Rose Siding]

3. "living in close proximity" like in Vietnam?

That is supposed to guard against or deter drug use?

[leftchick]

5. What is Afghanistan's main cash crop?

help me out here, I forget..... :eyes:

[kodi]

13. yeap, no drugs in afghanistan, none.

i bet that heroin is already being shipped back in body bags, oh, excuse me, travel tubes.

[kentuck]

21. Yep....

"Pass that little bottle of liquid opium over here...I'll just put a little of that on this joint of Afghan Red...wake me up in about 4 hours..."

[9215]

14. Same as Vietnam's

You should read Alfred McCoy's new book "Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in global drug trade". It is a phenomenal book on how the CIA backed elements marketed to US GI's in Vietnam and opened a gateway to the US.

[Nlighten1]

6. They will just take all their rank

yet another double standard. Everyone in Shrubs cabinet takes drugs but out soldiers aren't allowed to.

[GCP]

7. So THAT'S not gonna work for getting out of active duty

I can imagine more than a few people trying it to get out of going to Iraq-Nam.

[leetrisck]

8. We can hardly complain about positive tests

for those going over when the military is giving it to them when they see fit to do so - remember the stories

[pretzel4gore]

10. hopped up pilots on pharmaceutical quality speed!

yep...i remember (btw thought about joining the USAF, but too old, too fat and too liberal! plus i'd rather bomb gee W down on his pig-ranch haha)

[Ilsa]

9. Ah! The voices of experience!

I knew posting this would bring further clarity to the subject from the benefit of your collective experience!

I had also wondered about how many went scouting for drugs for the first time to get dismissed from having to go active. It reminded me of that scene in Office Space where the three computer programmers are trying to find some crack and hit up on the guy schlepping magazines door to door under the pretense that he's a recovering drug addict.

I wonder how the reporter could keep a straight face hearing that line about soldiers not having access to drugs or alcohol.

[Nikia]

11. We need to keep druggies out unless we really need them

In peace time, they'll hand out dishonorable discharges to soldiers smoking a little pot while off duty. In this case, they'll send them to war. How hypocritical.

[Lars39]

16. I have a nephew who received an honorable discharge

several yrs ago for Frying his brain. His sergeant was his supplier; no action taken against him. He was stationed in Colorado. He's still messed up, imo.

[HawkerHurricane]

20. That ain't the half of it

They'll send the druggies, and the admitted gays, and people with a dozen other reasons why they shouldn't be sent...
THEN
When these kids come back, they'll be Dishonorably Discharged and denied VA bennies because they are drug users, gay, etc...

[leftofthedial]

15. they'll pump them up with worse than that

to get them sufficiently motivated to kill Iraqi women and children, don't you know.

[9215]

17. This Maj, Stover is absolutely full of

shit!

Officials with the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., said they had no figures on the prevalence of drug use in the Middle East, but Army spokesman Maj. Steve Stover said it’s doubtful that drug habits carried into Iraq have persisted.

“I doubt there would be very many soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq with access to drugs, or alcohol for that matter.” Besides, Stover said, “living in close proximity to other soldiers, you’ll know if someone is drunk” or high.


You have seperation from family and friends in a hostile area without access to recreation.....You have a the perfect environment for drug addiction.

With Afghanistan's poppy production at an all time high you have a repeat of Vietnam.

The new book by Alfred McCoy "Politics of Heroin" shows how local drug dealers in concert with the CIA started selling to GI's in Vietnam. This WILL be/is repeated Afghanistan I will guarantee it.

When I was in the Navy during Vietnam I was around people who were drug addicts and I, nor others knew it. I knew these people for years. The only time I found out was when me and a couple of them went scuba diving and the boat broke down. We were stranded out at sea and they couldn't get there fix. You see all I ever saw was them in their addicted state, when they went into withdrawal I learned who they really were.

[9215]

18. Our "allies" in Iraq have increased dope production!!!

Opium production in Afghanistan drops way off after Taliban get control of Afghanistan, it is now back up to pre-Taliban levels. this article shows that opium has skyrocketed since US got back in:

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q3.html


The claim that drug-trafficking had shifted from Taliban to Northern Alliance territory was developed further on 11/25/01 by the London Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,0-605618,00.html>, which attributed the shift to the Taliban's ban of 2000 on opium-growing:
"During the ban the only source of poppy production was territory held by the Northern Alliance.

It tripled its production. In the high valleys of Badakhshan - an area controlled by troops loyal to the former President Burhannudin Rabbani - the number of hectares planted last year jumped from 2,458 to 6,342. Alliance fields accounted for 83 per cent of total Afghan production of 185 tonnes of opium during the ban.



THIS IS A CARBON COPY OF WHAT HAPPENED IN VIETNAM.

Now these troops will come back to the US and get into dealing and using and fucking crime and a new generation of drug addicts will fill the cofers of the international drug traffickers.

[DS1]

19. Air-mail to Hawaii, Gov't effeciency at its finest!

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Hawaii based units shipped their results off to New Jersey, overnight.

[9215]

22. kick