Navy Hopes Drug Test Will Detect, Deter Meth Users

The Navy is launching a new drug test this week to snare methamphetamine users among its personnel in Southern California. Officials estimate they will catch about 6,500 sailors and Marines during the next year with this test and quash escalating use of the illegal drug.

Although the Navy routinely and randomly has tested for drugs for several years, word spread in recent years that the test previously used for methamphetamine was not foolproof.

“The word was out that the guys could do methamphetamines without getting caught,” said Cmdr. Doug Schamp, a Navy spokesman. “We say, yeah, we have a problem.”

Officials say they also have a solution. They predict the new test, federally approved last month, will snare about 70% more methamphetamine users than the old one. Should use of methamphetamine spread across the country, they said, the Navy’s four other drug testing laboratories may start using the test.

“If you’re on active duty and stationed in Southern California and if you continue to use meth, we’re going to catch you--it’s only a matter of time,” said Cmdr. Darrell Snook, commanding officer of San Diego’s Navy Drug Screening Laboratory, which annually conducts more than 460,000 urine tests of Marines and sailors stationed from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

For the military, San Diego remains the drug capital of the world, Snook said. It has more methamphetamine available than any other Naval base and has a port that draws ships from marijuana-producing countries.

During the first three months of 1989, Marines and sailors in Southern California who tested positive were almost evenly divided among marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamine and methamphetamine stimulants.

Overall drug use in the Navy is dropping, primarily because of the widespread testing, officials believe. In 1988, according to a Department of Defense survey, 2% of enlisted men and women across the nation tested positive for drugs, down from 7% in 1983.

But more and more servicemen have been caught using methamphetamines, even with the previous urine test that was not consistently sensitive to the drug. In 1987, 1,200 servicemen tested positive for the drug at the San Diego lab. The following year, the number climbed to 2,500. And in the current fiscal year, which ended Sept. 31, 4,000 servicemen tested positive.

During the next year, Snook estimates, the new test, a radioimmunoassay, will net about 6,500 users. It will also snare such designer and derivative drugs as MDMA, “ecstasy” and “ice.”

Navy personnel are randomly tested for six different drugs, including cocaine and marijuana. Last year, officials developed a test for the hallucinogenic drug, LSD. The average sailor is tested about two or three times each year, officials said. And for most, the testing is an effective deterrent to using drugs.

“I’m not going to take the chance of getting caught,” said one ensign at North Island Naval Air Station. “It’s just not worth it.”

Officers who test positive for drugs are automatically discharged. Other personnel are usually given another chance, though military judges use their discretion. Second offenders are generally discharged, said Lt. Greg Smith, a Naval spokesman in Washington. In 1988, there were 6,273 drug-related discharges.

Methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant that can be ingested, snorted or injected, is considered a blue-collar drug and a relatively new arrival on the drug scene. Officials are anxiously awaiting the arrival of “ice,” a new, smokeable form.

In a 1980 Pentagon survey of 20,000 military personnel, conducted by anonymous questionnaires, one third admitted that they had used drugs within the previous 30 days.

But the Navy drug testing program did not begin until late 1981, after a Marine Corps aircraft crashed into the Nimitz aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. Fourteen people were killed and 42 were injured. Autopsies revealed that six of the 10 deck crew who died had used illegal drugs.

Adm. Thomas Hayward, chief of naval operations, coined a slogan about drugs that has become widespread: “Not on my watch, not on my ship and not in my Navy.”

ABUSE IN HAWAII

Use of a highly addictive, smokable form of methamphetamine is spreading in Honolulu. A17