Not in My Navy

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The smoking lamp for marijuana has never been legally lit on any V. S. naval vessel but, as drug abuse, especially marijuana, became an accepted norm in the late 1960s and 1970s, military atti­tudes about drug abuse eased. No more. The marijuana lamp is out, and so will you be, too, if you're one of those who can't leave it and the more dangerous drugs alone.

Drug abuse in the military, especially in the Navy, burst onto the national news scene in May 1981, when a congressional subcom­mittee charged that marijuana use was a contributing factor in the crash of an EA-6B Prowler on the flight deck of the Nimitz (CVN-68).

Fourteen men died. Autopsies of six showed traces of marijuana in the blood system, which can retain cannabinoids up to 30 days after marijuana is used. Just two months before the fatal crash, a Depart­ment of Defense study had reported that 47% of the sailors in paygrades E1-E5 surveyed had used mar­ijuana within the previous 30 days. Accusations and denials laced the front pages of the country's news­papers. Representative Joseph Addabbo (Dem.- N.Y.), chairman of the House Defense Appropria­tions Subcommittee, brought the issue to national attention with in-depth hearings.¹

Ironically, at the time of the crash and all the adverse publicity, the Navy had been steeped in a long-range plan to combat drug abuse. That process of reforming drug abuse policy was accelerated. The Navy, which had been quietly battling substance abuse in its ranks for more than two decades—at times begging for money for its highly successful rehabilitative programs—finally received support.

The result: a parade of critics and reformers produced countless news reports and studies on drug abuse in the military. The White House, State De­partment, and Congress revised federal drug abuse policy, especially trafficking laws. And, week after week, new guidelines flowed down the chain of com­mand to the fleet, which, as the Chief of Naval Op­erations, Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, directed in a videotaped message to the fleet, were expected to “stamp out drug abuse in this great Navy of ours.”

Division officers have been asked to sift through the plethora of information, which has remained, so far, uncollected and overwhelming. What follows, then, is a guide to help division officers combat the problems of drug abuse in the fleet. (Alcohol, al­though a drug and a prominent problem, will not be discussed here. Attention to the use of marijuana will be our main concern.)

Shattering The Mirror-Image Theory: The De­partment of Defense (DoD) spends more than $100 million annually and employs about 3,900 personnel in substance abuse prevention programs.² Never­theless, in November 1980, a DoD survey, known as the Burt Study, revealed evidence of shockingly high incidence of drug abuse in all the services. (See

Figure 1.) From the survey, analysts concluded that “40 per cent of U. S. combat units may be impaired by drug abuse.”³ In all four services, marijuana is by far the most widely used drug. It is the cheapest and easiest to obtain and use.

Results from the Burt Study show that the Navy and Marine Corps, especially in paygrades E1-E5, have the highest incidence of marijuana use. In the same paygrades, the Navy had the highest percent­age of use in all drug categories, except in PCP and heroin, where the Marine Corps and the Army held a slight edge. Why does the Navy have the worst drug abuse problem? Testifying before a House sub­committee on 18 June 1981, Brigadier General Wil­liam C. Louisell, U. S. Army, Deputy Assistant Sec­retary of Defense (Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention) outlined the four factors which are com­monly referred to as the major determinants of drug abuse:⁴

►Age: The Air Force is the oldest service, average age 26. The Navy is the youngest.

►Proportion of Women: The Air Force has the larg­est percentage of women serving in uniform. The Navy has the least.

►Marital Status: The Air Force is the most married service and the Navy the least.

►Educational Level: In this last category. General Louisell reports that the Navy is slightly behind the Air Force, which has, according to his figures, the highest educational level of the four services.

In every statistical category of the Burt Study, the incidence of drug use in the Navy is significantly higher than that of the Air Force, and, in most cases, the survey shows the Navy has the worst problem of all four services.

Navy Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program officials attributed the rise in drug use to four prevailing fac­tors (none of which General Louisell mentions be­fore the House subcommittee):⁵

►Naval installations are located in large cities, and Navy ships make frequent visits to foreign ports, where drugs are easily obtainable.

►The gap between permissive civilian lifestyles and restricted, disciplined naval life at sea is growing, creating a perceived need for artificial outlets.

►The Navy lacks 20,000 petty officers in critical technical areas, which contributes to a severe short­age in “peer-group” leadership.

►Longer family separations are reducing personal stability.

Who uses drugs? Counseling and Assistance Cen­ters (CAACs) on the West Coast recently published a report to help target their services. The profile of the Navy’s drug user, based on the thousands of screenings CAACs do annually, is described as a 19-year-old white male. He started using drugs at about age 13 or 14, probably his first experiment with marijuana occurred in junior high school. At the same time drug use started, emotional devel­opment slowed down or stopped.⁶

The Burt Study showed at the hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations that for all drug use, paygrades E1-E5 are the hard­est hit. At paygrades E6-E9, drug use declines sharply; but it is almost the same forOl-03, leveling off at between 8-9%. At the 04 level, it drops again and disappears. (See Figure 2.)

In the past, many have argued that the Navy in­herits its drug problem from society at large. In 1980, 65% of all high school seniors in the United States had used some illicit drugs.⁷ The Burt Study con­cluded that 40% of the Navy’s first-termers in 1980 had used drugs before they walked into the recruit­er’s office. We have been recruiting the problem right into the ranks.

But what was developed as an explanation be­came an excuse. It is known as the mirror-image theory. The Burt Study concluded that for the ages 18-25, marijuana use (in the previous 30 days) in the civilian and military community was 42% and 40%, respectively—almost identical. The correlation in that age group continues to show that, for all other drugs, the incidence of usage is significantly similar.

Much has been done to try to shatter the mirror- image theory. At the House subcommittee hear­ings, General Louisell said, “We take small comfort from the correlation between civilian and military substance abuse prevalence. We are not satisfied with the levels of reported use or with the conse­quences we suffer due to that use.”

Admiral Hayward states it more succinctly in his videotaped message to the fleet: “The thing all of us must remember is that being in the Navy isn’t just another job. It isn't enough to shrug off the drug abuse argument by saying we're just a mirror image of society. We’re not. We’re better than that. We’re different. . . . The underlying strength resides in our awareness that being in the Navy requires us to set standards higher than society at large.”

As drug abuse, especially marijuana, became an accepted norm of behavior in the late 1960s and 1970s, military attitudes about drug abuse eased, too, and the problem got worse. The policies of neglect which created the loss of control had to be changed.

The Problem—Marijuana: Statistics etch in stone one particular fact: in the fleet, the Navy’s drug problem is a marijuana problem. But put the graphs and charts and numbers aside. Try to picture the look in the CNO’s eyes when he said, “Looking at me right now, on this screen, are many young men and women wearing the uniform of the United States Navy who are recklessly and carelessly using drugs ... are doing it just for kicks, just to get away with something.” He was talking to the recreational mar-

Air Force

Army                     Navy             Marine Corps

Figure 2: Percentage of Population Using Each Drug

Paygrades

+ Less than half of 17c

Source: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations. House of Representatives. U. S. Government Printing Office. 1981.

ijuana user. His anger at the image of a “Navy sky- high. a Navy spaced out on the job,” is being di­rected at two participants of the problem: the sailors who said they use marijuana regularly and those who have allowed them to use it.

The public outcry against drug abuse in the Navy, embodied in scathing political cartoons and head­line-grabbing statements by congressional leaders, is an outrage at a situation for which the entire nation is responsible. The permissiveness has come back to haunt us.

The price of marijuana in the United States has plummeted, mainly because of the substantial rise in marijuana production right in our own backyard— California, Hawaii, and Oklahoma. The epidemic of marijuana use is now. It is not a problem we have inherited, nor have we allowed it to creep in our borders from some “foreign element.” It has hap­pened right in our own homes, at times cultivated in our own gardens.

Help or Hammer: When social ills become un­manageable, there is a tendency to legislate their respectability. So it has been with drug abuse. For obvious reasons, the U. S. Navy cannot function with widespread drug abuse. Legalization is not, nor will it ever be, an option in the Navy.

In November 1980, the Navy launched a two-year detailed program to combat drug abuse. To kick off the plan, the Burt Study results were announced to the fleet. Six months later, in May 1981, the CNO- approved program was released. It consisted of ten points:

►Navy Drug Safety Action Program

►Portable urinalysis kits

►Warrant Officer/Limited Duty Officer Enforcement Program

►Drug Detection Dog Program

►Inspection and assistance teams

►Navy alcohol and drug information system

►Alcohol and drug control officer

►Drug abuse specialists at Human Resources Man­agement Center/Detachment

►Master-at-Arms Mobile Training Team

►Motivational education—Accession pipeline.

The following month, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, under the Reagan Administration’s cam­paign promise to renew the war on drugs, issued a new alcohol and drug abuse control instruction. The CNO's “get-tough” message was sent throughout the fleet in July 1981. By this time, Admiral Hay­ward’s message was clear. “Responsible sailors could well develop mistrust, resentment and eventual lack of respect for a system which seems to be less than enthusiastic about dealing firmly and swiftly with drug abuse.”

The “bleeding-heart” approach, as some had called it, had failed miserably. It was time to “help or hammer.”

As a result, the Navy’s drug abuse programs shifted in emphasis from rehabilitation to enforcement and prevention. The new program is called Project Navy Counterpush. Division officers play a pivotal role. The following are the necessary steps to implement the changes:

►Set an example. Emphasize that chief petty offi­cers and leading petty officers help you change at­titudes about drug use. Peer-group leaders (E4-E5) need your support.

►Be aggressive. Recognize the threat and make sure the division understands that you are aware of the problem.

►Use the tools available. Some of the many include health and welfare inspections, extra military in­struction, special evaluations, quarterdeck searches, law enforcement services, command drug assess­ment teams, urinalysis test kits, drug dogs, and Na­val Investigative Service (NIS) regional forensic laboratories.

► Early intervention is essential. The Drug Exemp­tion Program has been disbanded. Refer identified abusers to screening promptly. A Drug Safety Ac­tion Program (DSAP) modeled after the highly successful Navy Alcohol Safety Action Program (NASAP) has been started. Use it.

►Do not be afraid to punish. The risk of drug use has been clearly stated. Punishment is expected. Do not disappoint the offenders. In addition, too often division officers have not recognized the difference between personnel who truly need and deserve re­habilitative assistance and those recreational-habit­ual users who see marijuana as a way out. Remem­ber drug abuse is primarily rooted in first-termers who want just that.

► Be consistent. It is not okay to say, “I don’t care what you do on your own time.” In United States vs. Trottier (1980), the Court of Military Appeals said, “Almost every involvement of service person­nel with the commerce of drugs is service-con­nected.” Active duty means active duty. The CNO directed that officers have a “consistently tough in­tolerance to drug abuse both on board ship and ashore.”

►Know the laws. There have been significant changes to the guidelines on drug abuse prevention, espe­cially urinalysis testing and paraphernalia and drug rehabilitation referral. Review the guidelines. Do not be afraid to call the local Counseling and As­sistance Centers. They will help you.

Traditional military principles of leadership and discipline will work. Vice Admiral Wesley Mc­Donald, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare), testifying before Congressman Addabbo’s subcommittee, said: “Where there is good leader­ship, we have good morale, and we see less impact of perceptive drug uses.”⁸ The get-tough salvos on the entrenched attitudes on drug abuse are working. Congressman Addabbo, who once singled out the Navy for having the worst drug problem, has re­versed himself. Just three months after the CNO’s new policy took hold, Congressman Addabbo said that the other services should emulate the Navy's new drug abuse program.

A mobster is supposed to have complained about a crooked politician that, “He won’t stay bought.” Perhaps the Navy’s drug abuse problem won’t stay licked since a certain level of drug abuse, especially marijuana use, will be introduced with every fresh batch of recruits.

But the process is just beginning. Short-term dis­ciplinary action and preventive measures will need the support of fleetwide education. Future attitudes about drug abuse will be changed by “institution­alizing intolerance.”

Not In My Navy: Recent trends suggest the CNO’s ten-point drug abuse prevention program is working slowly into the system. We should expect attitudes about drug abuse to change from permissive blood­letting to expected levels of disciplinary problems. But this will occur only through vigilant effort.

The Secretary of the Navy has set up very specific guidelines to reduce the amount of drug abuse the Navy recruits into its ranks. The Navy does not function in a vacuum, and a certain level of drug use—especially marijuana use—will be reintro­duced into the ranks with every fresh crop of re­cruits. To effect a long-term change in attitudes about drug abuse will take a constant renewal of the Na­vy’s drug prevention programs.

The Reagan Administration has enlisted the help of all the armed services to assist the Coast Guard in its struggle against illegal drug smuggling. Navy ships have been directed to help (on a not-to-inter- fere basis) the Coast Guard locate the countless, barely seaworthy merchant vessels that have be­come the stereotypical standard-bearer of the Latin American drug connection. In addition, airborne warning and control system (AWACS) surveillance planes are being used off the coast of Florida to alert the Coast Guard in a more effective over-the-hori­zon detection of drug traffickers. In 1981, Colom­bian authorities, after years of prodding from Wash­ington, seized more than 3,000 tons of marijuana, a 345% increase over the previous year. Recent news­paper accounts suggest the Colombian trade is dying.⁹ U. S. suppliers are turning to homegrown marijuana

because the risks involved in importing it have be­come high.

In no way is this intended to suggest that mari­juana use, especially among the nation’s teenagers, will be significantly reduced. Presently, the many reports on the physical and psychological effects of marijuana use have been too inconsistent to force a serious rethinking about its use. There is a signifi­cant amount of misinformation about the effects of marijuana to sustain the mystery that many regard as the impetus for initial experimentation, especially at a young age.

Last year, Newsweek, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times all reported that hundreds of anti-marijuana parent organizations have sprung up, unheralded, around the nation, because of the rising uncertainty about the effects of marijuana use.¹⁰

In the civilian community, the debate continues. In the Navy, the issue is black and white. As Ad­miral Hayward has stated, “All it takes is accepting one simple attitude and following through. Not here. Not on my watch. Not in my Navy. . . . Let me put it another way. Would you pass by a shipmate who was wounded? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d risk your life to save the life of a buddy or salvage a shipmate. Well, a drug-using serviceman is a wounded man or woman. If he or she can’t save themselves, then others must.”

The cost of drug abuse to the Navy, in lost man­hours, training, readiness, money, and lives, is over­

Presumably having found neither marijuana nor LSI) on this LSD, a pot-sniffing German Shepherd departs in the conventional manner. Hut newer techniques involving air­dropping the dogs from helicopters have reportedly caused drug users to panic and throw their drugs overboard.

whelming and shocking. Some examples follow.

► In 1981, the enormous opium harvest in the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, and Laos)—estimated at more than 900 metric tons—resulted in three re­ported deaths, numerous near-death overdoses, and a high number of drug busts as high-grade heroin was being passed off as cocaine to sailors of the Pacific Fleet.

►A recent drug investigation on board the Midway (CV-41) resulted in 14 persons being referred to trial by court-martial.

►For every drug identification made, five to seven naval personnel are involved to process the case— men and women who could contribute more directly to operational readiness.

►In 1980, 589 submariners were transferred to other communities for substance abuse.

►Of those surveyed in the Burt Study (E1-E5), 26% said they had been high while working.

We all know the dangers. That fireman apprentice who is supposed to be keeping an eye on four or five gauges at once, making sure the 1A boiler does not blow, has just lit up a joint. A third class boat­swain’s mate just came out of a smoke-filled fan room for his watch on the helm. Why was the wa­tertight door dogged down so tightly? A seaman apprentice’s eyes look bloodshot to you and his pupils are dilated. You remember him telling you once that he used to “smoke some weed” in school. Should you let him go unreported? No, not in my Navy.

'Committee on Appropriations. House of Representatives. 97th Congress (New York: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1981).

-Ibid., p. 567.

'Letter from Congressman Joseph P. Addabbo, 18 June 1981. 'Committee on Appropriations, p. 509.

'NADAP Information Service. March 1981.

“NAS Alameda Instruction 5350.4E, 12 October 1981. Drug and Alcohol Abuse Program, p. 3.

'Committee on Appropriations, p. 520.

“Committee on Appropriations, p. 510.

'’Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 21 January 1982.

'"The Facts About Drug Abuse (Washington, D. C.:Drug Abuse Council. 1980).

Lieutenant Paolantonio began working with drug abuse at the Shepard House, New York City. In January 1980, he was the drug and alcohol program advisor in the USS Haleakala (AE-25). He is presently assigned to the USS Ouellet (FF-1077).