USA Today reported on 10 October that the Army started accepting more recruits with waivers for prior marijuana use. The times are changing. Recruiting quotas are climbing. With lower unemployment, the task of finding qualified recruits gets tougher. Marijuana legalization at the state level continues to increase the pool of ineligible potential service members.
Past Experience
“Not in my Navy,” is what I was told about drug use by my recruiter in 1982. But that wasn’t the reality. The Navy had just introduced zero tolerance and made a lot of implementation mistakes. In the 80s, I saw many users among my peers, probably some that shouldn’t have entered service. Most of them lied about prior drug use because they knew that was necessary to enlist. In the 90s, I saw some very good Sailors sent home with discharges that effectively ruined their lives. Testing programs took root with a vengeance. In the 00s, I reported to a ship decimated by drug use while getting ready for deployment. Different testing theories yielded divergent results.
The early years of the Navy’s enforcement of its drug policy coincided with a generational inflection point in society’s views on drugs and the military struggled to adapt. How my Navy handled zero tolerance changed over those years. We turned a blind eye, sometimes with a wink. Then we increased testing. Then too often we didn’t test to the authorized limits because we couldn’t afford to lose the people. We effectively called orders like steering a ship in extremis, “Hard right rudder. Hard left rudder. Shift your rudder!”
Now we’re at another inflection point. It’s not just pot legalization. Opioid and similar hard drug deaths became a national emergency and changed the conversation. Drug users became victims. This will creep into military culture—including Navy culture—as an ethos and a difficult problem to manage if we don’t do something to prepare. We’re on the cusp of another generation of shifting rudder decisions. We necessarily will have to navigate our way to greater acceptance of prior drug use. The Navy must reexamine its policies and practices necessary to acclimate.
Increased Acceptance and Support
There will be good people—drug users, perhaps even addicts—who we should offer the chance of a military career. I’m not advocating the Army approach. If somebody wants to work hard and turn their life around prior to service entry, they should have the opportunity with a delayed service entry date and periodic testing to prove their intent and ability to serve clean. Contract obligations to undergo random testing above the norm should help keep prior drug users on a solid path at least through their first end of active obligated service date; and longer in the rare exception of admitting an exceptionally qualified addict to serve.
The Navy currently offers excellent recovery support (often for drug users on the way out of the service). In the future, recovery support will help some users make the transition into the Navy. If the societal trends continue, perhaps a 12-step structure at the unit level can further increase success, especially throughout a deployment.
Increased Testing
In addition to entry level and ongoing support, our commanders must test all the rank and file to the full limits of their authority, both in frequency and volume. Tell them we’re going to be tough because it’s necessary to be ready. Test on weekends. Test the morning after concerts and raves. Test on holidays. One of the last brain skills to mature is the ability to assess and mitigate risk. We shouldn’t let young brains make bad life decisions. We can’t allow Navy zero tolerance policy to result in anything less than a full crew ready to go.
Counterintuitively, laxness in testing will result in increased drug-positive test results. Deploying with 5-10 percent attrition does more than impact mission performance; it kills the fighting spirit of the understaffed shipmates. In my example ramping up for deployment in the aughts, we went from 21 discharges in the 12 prior months to zero drug positive tests over the next 12. We deployed whole and with high morale. Maximum testing will increase readiness. The Navy will have to invest in faster and broader testing support.
Some disruptive users will slip into the system. But I know, through experience, that the overwhelming majority of our volunteer force wants to serve successfully. When we tell them what we need and explain that being caught will ruin their lives, they will listen. Without the conversation, they might believe hard work and good performance can save them. It won’t. When they know it’s out of the hands of the commander to decide, they will appreciate the tough love that helps them succeed.
