Drug Testing in the Military
v 1.0 - May 19, 2005
- NavyAccording to Navy Times (Nov 29, 2004), the average navy sailor is drug tested 3 times each year. In 2003, navy people submitted 1,289,911 samples for urinalysis, up 61% in the past five years. 4,219 of those tested positive (330 per 100,000). Marijuana is the most common drug that results in a positive test followed by cocaine, methamphetamine, and "club drugs such as Ecstasy". The navy began regularly testing for drugs in 1981.
- All Branches (Notes from July, 2012)Many serving and former members of the U.S. military email us to describe their experience with drug testing. The basic outline of what they describe are that all branches of the military require random urine testing of all enlisted and most officer personnel. The military administrations can and do lie about what they test for, what they can detect, and how long they can detect substances. They advertise severe punishments and use "scare tacticts" to increase compliance. In many situations, especially with lower rank personnel, monitors actually watch the urine collection in order to keep people from using saved urine or other techniques for avoiding detection.