Military to Begin Drug Tests on Recruits Today

Acting on the orders of Congress, the Defense Department will begin testing military recruits for drugs and alcohol for the first time today.

The program, with a start-up cost of $3.1 million, will require all enlisted recruits and officer candidates applying to the military academies and Reserve Officer Training Corps program to undergo testing for alcohol and evidence of past use of marijuana and cocaine.

Applicants for the National Guard and the reserves also are covered.

Under guidelines announced by Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, applicants who flunk the screening will lose their eligibility to join the military for up to a year, depending upon which substance is detected.

“Positive findings for marijuana and alcohol will result in an enlistment ineligibility for six months on the first test,” the guidelines state. “Positive findings for cocaine will result in an enlistment ineligibility for one year. A positive second test on any of the three drugs will result in a two-year period of enlistment ineligibility.”

317,000 Joined in Year

The Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force signed up almost 317,000 recruits in fiscal 1987.

Congress ordered the testing program last December, when it approved the Pentagon’s fiscal 1988 budget bill, to be begun by the first week of June.

Maj. David Super at the Pentagon said Tuesday that Carlucci decided in January to start the testing at military processing stations on June 1, “and everything is ready for the start tomorrow--we’re on track.”

Some Defense Department officials have opposed recruit screening as too expensive and unnecessary, since all military personnel on active duty are tested at random, but Congress approved a budget amendment sponsored by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), who argued that “a drug-screening program is logical and long overdue.”

Argument for Screening

“The time to start catching the users is before they join the armed forces, when the government has no obligation to them,” Hollings said.

Carlucci, in setting out the program’s guidelines, decided that recruits should be tested “for drug and alcohol use during their pre-enlistment physical examinations,” using a breath or blood test for alcohol and urine samples to detect past use of marijuana and cocaine.