if 87% of the worlds opium comes from there, that means it should be a target rich environment... Napalm and MOAB the poppy fields!!!
Posted on 12/11/2004 10:18:51 AM PST by Former Military Chick
WASHINGTON (AP)--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% 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% 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.
Steroids are readily available in the middle east, but they dont test for those. A bunch of KBR employees just got the boot for that.
if 87% of the worlds opium comes from there, that means it should be a target rich environment... Napalm and MOAB the poppy fields!!!
Where do you think the base material for all this comes from? Afghanistan! They have been a major source of opium for pharmacuetical pain killers for many years and will continue to be so.
And yes they sell tons of the stuff on the black market because of the constant demand for non-pharmaceutical opiates.
You can napalm all you want but as long as that demand is there dirt poor flower farmers will continue to grow and harvest poppies.
Welllllll.....I'm not so sure about that: a joint or 2 would probably help many of our servicemen deal w/ the stress they are having to suffer thru.
I know that the Israeli Defense Forces are letting their soldiers smoke pot for that purpose (or so it was reported).
i know all that... but i also know we can tell what who we buy from legally and who is cultivating for the black market too!!!as to the poppy growers... it would be cheaper all the way round to just put them all on welfare and be done with it, but that's too easy.
for a few million we could about stop them from growing it if we paid them more to not grow it and that would save several orders of magnitude of money down the line in enforcement and treatment etc...
I know the navy is "zero tolerance" meaning one is discharged after any drug offense or positive urinalysis, no ifs ands or buts. I wonder if the army still practices this what with troop shortages and such.
Army is supposed to be 'zero tolerance' and i know that when i return back to duty after christmas leave i get a urinalysis as soon as i get back but i did read a story that was interesting. Apparently a small group of soldiers learned they were going to iraq and smoked some weed right before so they failed the drug test but instead of kicking them out like they were hoing the army shipped them off anyway and will decide how to deal with them when they return
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