Navy Viewed as Setting Drug-Testing Standard

The largest and best drug-screening program in the nation is run by the Pentagon--and the Navy, in particular, according to most testing experts.

The armed forces conducted 2.8 million urinalyses for drug abuse in 1985, easily making the Department of Defense the nation’s largest employer that is screening for drugs.

The Navy’s program, which got off to a rocky start in 1980, is considered a paradigm because of its rigorous laboratory procedures and the many built-in safeguards to ensure reliable results.

The Navy program was initiated in a near-crisis atmosphere after a 1980 survey for the Pentagon--conducted through anonymous questionnaires among 20,000 military personnel--showed that 47% of the under-25 population in the Navy were using drugs.

‘Surprised at the Magnitude’

The Navy was “surprised at the magnitude of the drug-abuse problem and deeply concerned about the impact of this high drug-abuse rate on operational readiness and discipline,” according to Capt. Leo Cangianelli, director of the Navy’s Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention and Control Program.

Another impetus toward drug testing was the results of an investigation of the May, 1981, crash of a Marine Corps aircraft aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz in the Atlantic, which killed 14 people and injured 42. Autopsies showed that six of the 10 deck crew who died had used illegal drugs within the preceding 30 days.

When mass screening began in 1981, the four laboratories that were to perform the tests were overwhelmed, particularly the Navy hospital in Oakland.

“Truckloads of urine samples were arriving at the labs before they were adequately staffed to handle them,” Cangianelli recalled. “In response, Oakland took some shortcuts. They were also very sloppy in their paper work.”

In some instances, for example, the technicians confirmed a positive result on a radioimmunoassay test with a second radioimmunoassay--a procedure that most scientists say is unsatisfactory.

An even more serious problem resulted from inadequate procedures to ensure that each urine sample was properly identified and protected from accidental contamination or mix-up with another sample--commonly referred to as the “chain of custody.”

Tests Cast Into Doubt

At the end of the first year of testing, the Navy discovered that positive test results affecting about 4,500 people were cast into doubt because of breaches in the chain of custody.

As a result, disciplinary actions against 1,034 persons had to be reversed, including nearly 200 courts-martial, fines and reductions in rank, according to Cangianelli. Most of the others had received only counseling.

Today, by order of the chief of naval operations, any Navy personnel who handles urine samples must sign an accompanying bill of lading; special precautions are also taken to ensure that samples are not compromised while in transit to a lab.

Because of such procedures, only 11 disciplinary actions were reversed last year because of lab errors or a lapse in the chain of custody.

The Navy has five labs performing 1.8 million urinalyses a year, or about three specimens per person.

All personnel are tested during a pre-induction physical. Some tests are also ordered for probable cause, such as after an accident or for medical reasons. Most often, however, the tests are ordered at random.

The labs use radioimmunoassays to screen for amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine, marijuana, opiates and PCP. All positive test results are confirmed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, the most highly accurate and widely recommended technique for confirmatory testing. The total cost of the program is $25 million a year.

The reliability of the testing program is ensured, according to Cangianelli, by proficiency testing.

‘Element of Surprise’

Each of the labs is inspected six times a year--at regularly scheduled intervals, but with “an element of surprise” added, Cangianelli said.

In addition, every week urine samples whose drug contents are known are sent to the labs in order to assess the technicians’ proficiency. In some cases, the technicians know that they are being tested--but do not know the contents of the specimen; in other cases, “blind” samples are mixed in with other specimens so that technicians do not know that they are being tested.

“Over the past four years,” according to chemist Robert Willette of Duo Laboratories in Annapolis, Md., who helped design the Navy program, “there have been 4,000-plus blind samples submitted to the laboratories each year, and we have not obtained a single false positive. There has been a small percentage of false negatives.”

But the key to the Navy’s program is enforcement, Cangianelli said.

If a recruit tests positive for anything other than marijuana, the recruit is turned away. If only marijuana is found, the recruit is conditionally accepted; he is counseled and warned--and retested in 60 days. If that test is positive, the recruit is not accepted--a process analogous to the annulment of a marriage, Cangianelli said.

After boot camp, punishment for the first positive drug test is meted out by the discretion of the commanding officer, ranging from an entry on the sailor’s record to “other than honorable” discharge. A second positive test triggers automatic discharge.

Officers are usually given an other-than-honorable discharge for their first positive test.

Drug programs in the other branches of the armed forces are operated in much the same manner as the Navy’s, but they are less extensive.

The Pentagon’s program has been so successful that the Army since February has been screening 10,000 to 12,000 civilian employees in critical jobs out of civilian work force of 412,000. The Navy since 1982 also has screened some of its 356,000 civilian employees. The Air Force is studying the idea.