U.S. to Require Defense Workers to Be Drug-Free

Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci announced Wednesday that he has decided to require that defense contractors stamp out drug use among their 3.2 million employees and institute mandatory drug testing for workers dealing with classified or sensitive projects.

Carlucci said he will “issue a regulation requiring that defense contractors provide a drug-free workplace. This would mean counseling activities, referral activities, voluntary testing and, under carefully controlled circumstances, mandatory testing programs.”

The move will mark the Defense Department’s first effort to broaden drug testing rules currently in place for military personnel to outside civilian contractors. The program could take years to implement, however, and is likely to generate challenges on civil liberties grounds, a Pentagon official acknowledged.

Efforts are under way in Congress and the Administration to force firms that operate under all types of government contracts to certify that they are striving to curb drug use. One plan now before Congress would bar a company from doing any business with the government if one employee is convicted of using illegal drugs.

Carlucci announced the plan in testimony before a joint session of the House and Senate armed services committees, meeting to consider use of the military in the fight against illegal drugs. He argued that the only way to attack the drug problem is to reduce demand, not simply to chip away at the seemingly limitless supply of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, PCP and amphetamines.

Carlucci said the contractor proposal “may turn out to be more cost-effective than much of the interdiction that we do. I personally believe that the demand side is much more cost-effective than the supply side. On the supply side, you’re dealing with quicksilver.”

The drug-free workplace requirement would be attached to all future Defense Department contracts, a Pentagon spokesman said. If a firm fails to provide testing and treatment programs or employs drug-using workers, it risks losing the contract and future business with the military.

Carlucci said he wants the contractor community to provide a “user-unfriendly environment” for workers who use drugs.

In his testimony, Carlucci continued his campaign against efforts to involve the military more deeply in the war on drugs, saying that it would cost $18 billion a year to seal U.S. borders against the flow of illicit drugs, as House-passed legislation would require. A less sweeping measure has passed the Senate.

Even if the military could erect a wall around the United States, Carlucci said, it “would only serve to trigger a significant increase in domestic production.”

‘Absolutely Opposed’

Carlucci said that he remains “absolutely opposed” to giving U.S. soldiers police powers against drug smugglers.

“There’s a very significant distinction between law enforcement and the military,” he said. “At the risk of over-simplification, the military are trained and equipped to shoot everybody who comes over the hill. They are not trained and equipped to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They are trained and equipped with weapons of mass destruction.”

Carlucci said the military is willing and able to provide increased surveillance, communications and training assistance to the primary agencies responsible for drug interdiction--the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

He also offered to provide soldiers and equipment for overseas operations aimed at drug growing and processing areas. But, he stressed, “our assets are designed for war-fighting, not law enforcement.”

Estimate Called ‘Nonsensical’

Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado), chief sponsor of the House anti-drug legislation, said that Carlucci’s estimate of the cost of the drug mission was “nonsensical” because it included air, sea and ground coverage of the entire United States when drugs flow almost solely across the southern border.

Hunter also said that military police are better trained and equipped for law enforcement than most urban police forces and have extensive experience in civil arrests on U.S. military bases.

“He (Carlucci) said, in effect: ‘We don’t do windows.’ ” Hunter said. “They just don’t want to do it.”