Pentagon Steps Up Drug Tests Overseas

[Jerry D]

Pentagon Steps Up Drug Tests Overseas
Associated Press
December 11, 2004

WASHINGTON - The military is increasing drug testing of its forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, in part out of concern that troops will turn to drugs because of the stress of combat, Pentagon officials said Friday.

Drug use is low in the military and primarily limited to marijuana, said Mary Beth Long, the deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics. She spoke with the American Forces Press Service, an internal military news service.

But concerns about drug use center on Afghanistan, which has become the world's leading provider of opium since the U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power three years ago. Opium poppies can be refined into heroin; last year, Afghanistan accounted for 87 percent of the world's opium supply.

"One of the lessons that we have learned from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (in the late 1970s through the late 1980s) is that those troops went back to Russia with a drug problem," Long told the news service. "Our forces are obviously very, very different. We certainly have no expectation that they would suffer the same kind of issues."



But the increased stress of serving in combat areas could drive soldiers to readily available drugs, as happened to some during the Vietnam War, officials said.

In March, the Pentagon cited surveys that said 32 percent of troops stationed at home and around the world reported feeling "a lot" of work-related stress. Almost half said they believed their careers would probably or definitely be damaged if they sought mental health counseling.

The survey also found that cigarette smoking and heavy drinking were on the rise in the military. Use of illicit drugs is holding steady, however, far below the rate for civilians.