Drug Testing

[manfredvonrichthofen]

And I bet you they wouldnt.  Cops and Firefighters dont even have mandatory drug testing.  CAP does have a zero tolerance policy on illegal drug use.  Can someone get a hold of NHQ and find out how many 2Bs have been initiated because of drug abuse?  Even with that, if your using illegal or abusing legal drugs, your going to have other issues that I, as a Sq CC can boot you for.  In my 20yrs in CAP Ive never seen it be an issue with any members.

Personally I can't believe (not saying you are lying at all just a figure of speech) that police and fire personnel don't have mandatory drug testing, even EMTs here have mandatory drug testing, and we aren't armed on duty.

As to California being the worst when it comes to drugs, I don't know, have you seen Memphis Tennessee, or Atlanta Georgia? They are pretty bad too.

Now, I do believe we attract the most mature and dependable people for the most part, but you have to know that the occasional idiot pops up, it happens everywhere, especially in the military. As the squadron CC, yes you have a great ability to see most of what happens in your squadron, but you don't see your members at home do you? Even the best sometimes miss things, and if you miss something like a drug user, and something happens, how would you feel?

Personally, if a drug screening program only caught one person in each wing, it would have been worth it, simply because they were caught and taken care of. The biggest plus, it keeps the threat down even farther than it is now.

Ok, let me rephrase...

The improper use of any controlled substance has no place in CAP, and should be tested against and a zero tolerance policy should be implemented.

Okay.....are you going to pay for it?  How many O-rides do you want to cut?  Which NCSA?  How many missions do we scale back?

That's the bottom line.  Even if we a simple 10% survey of our members each year.....that 6000 members at $70+ a pop that $420,000 per year!

Then there is the extra costs involved when that small but significan number of people pop positive then fight it!

Not to mention that somewhere in our spare time we are going to have to manage this program.

Again, read my posts before you butt heads with one of them, if we inform congress, I bet they would allocate extra funding for it.

[RogueLeader]

I disagree that congress would. I just don't see it.

[bflynn]

The improper use of any controlled substance has no place in CAP, and should be tested against and a zero tolerance policy should be implemented.

And that would solve what problem?

[jeders]

I bet [Congress] would allocate extra funding for it.

I'll take that bet, easiest money I'll have ever made.

[spacecommand]

If you see a fellow member looked wacked out then report them to law enforcement (or have them go to a hospital) and have them take care of it.   They have the specialists that handle this type of item.  Get to know your follow CAP members you work daily with. 

CAP has many real problems it faces, this isn't one of them.

[Flying Pig]

Personally I can't believe (not saying you are lying at all just a figure of speech) that police and fire personnel don't have mandatory drug testing, even EMTs here have mandatory drug testing, and we aren't armed on duty.

In 15 yrs the only drug tests Ive ever done were pre-employment and the couple times Ive shot people.  And even then, that was by my request as to not give the law suit attorneys ANYTHING to have on me.  Rule out any doubt type of thing.  Beyond that Id challenge you to find me an LE or Fire agency (not a private EMS operator) that does routine or even spontaneous mandatory drug testing.

[lordmonar]

Again, read my posts before you butt heads with one of them, if we inform congress, I bet they would allocate extra funding for it.

I think you are smokeing crack....if you think that congress is just going to add $400K to our budget for drug testing.  Simply asking for it could send congress into a tizzy wondering if it smart turning over the $24M to an organisation that has a drug problem.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Again, read my posts before you butt heads with one of them, if we inform congress, I bet they would allocate extra funding for it.

I think you are smokeing crack....if you think that congress is just going to add $400K to our budget for drug testing.  Simply asking for it could send congress into a tizzy wondering if it smart turning over the $24M to an organisation that has a drug problem.

Again, we don't have a drug problem in CAP. And we would like to keep it that way. The best way to keep it that way in a world where the drug problem gets worse every day, the best way to prevent it is to ensure that it isn't there. The ONLY way that I see to ensure that it isn't there is to test against it. If you have a better way, other than instincts, and yours seem to be way off if you think I am smoking crack (whitch I find extremely disrespectful), then lets hear it.

[bflynn]

And we would like to keep it that way. The best way to keep it that way in a world where the drug problem gets worse every day, the best way to prevent it is to ensure that it isn't there. The ONLY way that I see to ensure that it isn't there is to test against it. If you have a better way,..., then lets hear it.

The way we're doing it seems to be working just fine.

As a CAP member I don't see the need.

As a taxpayer I really don't see the need.  I can think of a thousand things we need to do in this country before we borrow another $400,000/year to test people that show no signs of drug use.

[lordmonar]

Again, read my posts before you butt heads with one of them, if we inform congress, I bet they would allocate extra funding for it.

I think you are smokeing crack....if you think that congress is just going to add $400K to our budget for drug testing.  Simply asking for it could send congress into a tizzy wondering if it smart turning over the $24M to an organisation that has a drug problem.

Again, we don't have a drug problem in CAP. And we would like to keep it that way. The best way to keep it that way in a world where the drug problem gets worse every day, the best way to prevent it is to ensure that it isn't there. The ONLY way that I see to ensure that it isn't there is to test against it. If you have a better way, other than instincts, and yours seem to be way off if you think I am smoking crack (whitch I find extremely disrespectful), then lets hear it.

a) Your challenge to me to "find a better way" is a non-starter.  There is no problem to prevent....ergo I can't come up with a way to prevent it. 
b) With no problem to prevent there is no way in the FSM's Green Earth that CAP will ask congress and now way that they will approve INCREASING our budget!  You do follow politics right?
c) I don't "think" you smoke crack.....that's what they call a joke.....you know humor.

If......IF you can show that there is a problem.....even an emergering problem (like rising drug use of our target poplulation)....then maybe.....just maybe you have a point.  But really.....I can name 10-20 things I would rather do with $400K than doing random drug testing.

I can say that random drug testing in the military has not stopped drug use.  I have sat in on enough courts martial to know that.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Did you really ask me to find a problem like rising drug use of our target population? Ok challenge accepted.

12 to 18 years of age, the drug problem is rising exponentially... Our target age range of cadets. Sure sounds like a good portion of our target population to me.

It's not much better when you get into the next age group either.

So, challenge accepted, mission accomplished.

Now so far as what anyone would rather do with $400k a year, I can think of plenty, but do I really need more stuff in my house? In the scheme of running a country, $400k a year is t all that much. It takes about that to train one soldier I would imagine. But either way, I think ensuring the safety of our cadets would be a top priority, and anything we can do should be looked at.

So far as it being a joke when you suggest that I smoke crack, you should be able to tell by now that I am very serious about drug abuse being a problem. I have what I think is a decent sense of humor, but that doesn't do it for me. There are plenty of other jokes that you could make, and Thai often do make. But drug abuse isn't one of them. I have seen too many strung out on bath salts fentonil patches and other crap that should melt your brain when you abuse them to think its funny.

So, our target population having a rising drug problem? Yes
Other ways to spend money? yes
Safety of our cadets a concern? Yes
Safety of our assets? Yes
I just don't see why it's not worth trying to ask.

[jeders]

Did you really ask me to find a problem like rising drug use of our target population? Ok challenge accepted.

12 to 18 years of age, the drug problem is rising exponentially... Our target age range of cadets. Sure sounds like a good portion of our target population to me.

It's not much better when you get into the next age group either.

Cite please. The ACTUAL data that I've seen over the years shows a stable to declining trend with intermittent upticks. That's not an exponential increase.

So, challenge accepted, mission accomplished failed.

FTFY.

Now so far as what anyone would rather do with $400k a year, I can think of plenty, but do I really need more stuff in my house? In the scheme of running a country, $400k a year is t all that much. It takes about that to train one soldier I would imagine. But either way, I think ensuring the safety of our cadets would be a top priority, and anything we can do should be looked at.

I can think of several things that we can spend that money on that will have more impact than random drug screening. More O-rides, encampment/NCSA scholarships, more NCSAs, an increase to the DDR budget.

I just don't see why it's not worth trying to ask.

Because this is yet another administrative solution looking for a problem. You have not shown that the problem exists AT ALL. You have not shown that the problem exists IN CAP. And even if the problem did exist, there's no way that Congress is going to allocate more funds for this. If you look through the NEC briefings that are posted on the national website, you'll see that NHQ is expecting severe cutbacks in FY '13 and '14.

[lordmonar]

That is what my quick google search on drug use in america came up with.

The decline over the las few years has leveled out.

So the "exponetial increase" is just BS.

And 12-18 years old is NOT the target audiance of your drug testing......there is NO WAY IN HELL we are going to be able to do random drug testing on our cadets!  It just aint going to happen........my $400K/year figure was base on only testing senior members.....so if you want to include cadets.....well just up that to $800K.   

[Eclipse]

I have two issues with the above:

First, I don't necessarily believe that drug use in that age range is rising "exponentially".  I think a lot of the assumptions are based more on media hype then reality.

Second, even if it is on the whole, if you take a look at the subset of those inclined to join CAP or similar organizations, you'll find the percentages to be
significantly lower, for all the same reasons that these kids (and adults) are inclined to join to start with.

Regardless, it's only relevant to CAP if it is causing issues for CAP.  I've been in for almost 13 years, and and not aware of a single situation in this wing where there have been any issues with substance abuse, including alcohol, which is much more likely to be a prevalent issue for our members.

You have to show a relevant correlation before you can justify the expense or the loss of member good will.

[Spaceman3750]

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/yrbs/pdf/us_drug_trend_yrbs.pdf

The CDC says that in the use of illegal drugs in youth has been declining or has stabilized over the past few years. More interesting is that I apparently got enough out of my statistics class to know what the footnotes mean .

[Nathan]

Trying to say alcohol is more important (which I honestly agree with) is more important than weed does not look good at all. It is either catch all drugs and alcohol or not. I would stop the whole weed isn't as bad arguement, it makes you (which I hope to god and don't think you are due to your great attitude on this forum) look like a smoker yourself.

Oh dear, this argument made about as much sense as McCarthy made when he was persecuting people who disagreed with him as Communists.

A) I'm a scientist who chooses not to believe assertions without evidence, and there is no real evidence that weed is anywhere near as bad as people want to believe it is, and is certainly far less damaging and dangerous than alcohol, which is legal.

B) I'm a recent psychology major who studied fairly intensely the effect of drugs on behavior, and might know what I'm talking about.

C) I worked in a pharmacology and toxicology lab, again working with brains and drugs.

And so forth. Trying to pin me as a druggie simply because I choose not to take marijuana seriously as a problem we need to be spending money on is pretty lame.

It seems to me, that since we don't have a rampant drug issue amongst our ranks, it is the perfect time to start the good hard prevention. DDR as it is can only go so far.

This argument works fine when the lack of a drug problem in CAP means we have absolutely nothing else to pay for. But we do.

Oh, and by the way, my squadron doesn't yet have to worry about volcanoes, since I'm in Kansas. Would it be a good time for us to spend money lava-proofing the building and buying volcano insurance, since there are no volcanoes anywhere near us?

I don't know about you, but I would rather get rid of someone BEFORE they eat another man's face.

See, this is really why you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand. The drug that was involved in the face-eating incident was by almost all accounts probably LSD (which, for those of you who don't know, is also known as "acid", a fairly strong hallucinogenic). An LSD trip can last for a LONG time, and is undetectable in the usual cheap drug tests, which means that unless you have a cadet who is actively and obviously hallucinating (and it is obvious with LSD), then you aren't going to be able to detect the drug anyway, because it'll be out of their system pretty soon after they take it.

We're just going to have to live with the prospect that we have undetectable drug-fueled cannibals in our cadet program.

I know, that is really far fetched, but I digress, drugs are drugs, any substance that can alter a persons mental status needs not be in CAP. And the best way to keep it out is to initiate a zero tolerance policy, and you can't initiate a zero tolerance policy without testing against it.

And I say again, alcohol has been responsible for far more problems than a lot of the drugs you're saying we should test for. Why not test for alcohol, and kick out those who drink such a dangerous and mind-altering substance from CAP?

That's the main problem I have always had with CAP's stance on drugs. We take the stance that illegal=morally bad, and it's so stupid I actually am in awe of it. I'm expected to go out there and tell cadets that they are bad people for doing weed, instead of telling them that they are bad people for breaking the law when they do weed. Then I have to try to take questions as to why things that are more highly addictive and dangerous than marijuana, like alcohol and nicotine, are legal and therefore only bad until you're of the appropriate age.

And it's going to make for some awkward conversations if marijuana becomes legalized, at least in a controlled form, which I'm actually expecting will happen in my lifetime. We should just stick with saying that it's bad to break the law, and that CAP doesn't like having members who break the law, and base our zero-tolerance policy off of THAT, rather than the inherent "blanket badness" of illegal drugs over legal ones.

Oh, and by the way, I should probably also mention that prescription drugs are of far more concern to me than the vast majority of illegal substances. I would love to be able to tell cadets to be careful with their ritalin or lortab, for instance, because of how popular they are and how obviously addictive and dangerous they can be. But again, I'm expected to focus my efforts on battling drugs like marijuana which CANNOT be overdosed on, rather than something like percocet, which can destroy the liver and affect driving abilities as much as alcohol can with a fairly high addiction possibility.

[Eclipse]

We're just going to have to live with the prospect that we have undetectable drug-fueled cannibals in our cadet program.

I believe this is on the membership form now.

And it's going to make for some awkward conversations if marijuana becomes legalized, at least in a controlled form, which I'm actually expecting will happen in my lifetime. We should just stick with saying that it's bad to break the law, and that CAP doesn't like having members who break the law, and base our zero-tolerance policy off of THAT, rather than the inherent "blanket badness" of illegal drugs over legal ones.

Not going to happen - decriminalizing something isn't the same as making it legal.  Personally, I could care less, and would love to see the "War on Drugs" end with Walmart being the biggest supplier, but that's just not realistic.  If anything, the pendulum is likely to swing back the other way with the Supremes eventually ruling that the Feds have final say over pharmaceuticals because of interstate trade, and California's nonsense coming to an end.
If California's "experiment" has shown anything, it's that given an inch, people take a yard - it's become an open joke that Dr's will write a prescription
for "medicinal" marijuana for a hangnail.

Oh, and by the way, I should probably also mention that prescription drugs are of far more concern to me than the vast majority of illegal substances. I would love to be able to tell cadets to be careful with their ritalin or lortab, for instance, because of how popular they are and how obviously addictive and dangerous they can be. But again, I'm expected to focus my efforts on battling drugs like marijuana which CANNOT be overdosed on, rather than something like percocet, which can destroy the liver and affect driving abilities as much as alcohol can with a fairly high addiction possibility.

I don't see any reason why a DDR of CDI discussion can't include prescription drugs.  Abuse is abuse.

Alcohol is more dangerous from an abuse standpoint simply because of its proximity.  The average member's household is not likely to contain
illegal substances in easy reach, but most will likely have beer and wine (at a minimum).   That proximity, coupled with inattentive / absent parents
is the point of highest risk for our cadets.

I also have to agree with Lord that testing cadets under 18 is never going to happen.  Someone with an agenda might be able to push testing
pilots, especially post-mishap, but beyond that we're simply going to have to live with the same risks everyone else does.

[lordmonar]

DDR already includes abuse of perscription drugs....

However......DDR and similar programs are NOT effective in reducing drug use.  In some cases students who have gone through a DARE style program show an increase in use of certain types of drugs.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I have to agree with lordmonars last post about DARE programs.

From an EMT perspective, where we spent far more time on things like LSD and bath salts and prescription drug abuse like fentonil patches, I have to agree that marijuana is a far less concern than the heavier deadlier drugs. I have not been on any rant about marijuana, the fact is true, marijuana is the least deadly drug on the streets. And if your DDR program is focusing alley on pot, then I would request you focus on other drugs. There is already a statement about alcohol and caters if I'm not mistaken, and I don't think I am, about alcohol.

Drugs are bad, mkay...

So, my stance has not been swayed in the slightest about drug testing in CAP, but I most definitely understand the budget issues when it comes to testing, and if all we can do is test after someone has an accident that should have been avoidable, okay. But I wish it could go further than that.

[sarmed1]

We should just stick with saying that it's bad to break the law, and that CAP doesn't like having members who break the law, and base our zero-tolerance policy off of THAT, rather than the inherent "blanket badness" of illegal drugs over legal ones.

because there is no money available for "bad behavior reduction"....

mk