U.S. Military Drug Use Falls 89%, Study Says

TORONTO — Illicit drug use in the military has plunged nearly 90% since 1980, thanks to a get-tough policy and declining drug use in U.S. society, a study says.

The report tracked trends from six worldwide surveys of American military personnel, each including about 15,000 to 22,000 participants who answered confidential questionnaires. The surveys, sponsored by the Defense Department, covered the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines. (The Coast Guard is not part of that department.)

Results were reported Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Assn. by psychologist Robert Bray of the Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Survey participants were asked about drug use within the prior 30 days. When their responses were weighted to reflect the armed forces as a whole, they revealed that 27.6% of military personnel used illicit drugs in 1980.

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But the figure fell steadily after that, to 19% in 1982, 8.9% in 1985, 4.8% in 1988, 3.4% in 1992 and 3% in 1995. The 1995 rate is about one-third the civilian rate adjusted for differences in demographic makeup, Bray said.

The 89% decline showed up about equally in all illicit drugs, Bray said. There was also an 82% drop in illicit drug use within the 12 months before the survey.

To explain the trends, Bray cited an intensified program of urine testing by the military starting in the early 1980s, with a positive finding as grounds for discharge.

A second reason for the decline, Bray said, is a drop in the popularity of drugs in the general population. But statistical analysis showed this factor was not enough to explain the military decline.

Bray’s report also showed that levels of smoking, defined as having at least one cigarette in the prior 30 days and at least 100 in one’s life, dropped from 51% in 1980 to 32% in 1995.

Bray credited military smoking bans and stop-smoking programs, as well as declines of smoking in society in general. The military’s goal is to get smoking down to 20% by the year 2000, he said.