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 Study The CNS
Anecdotal Subtext
Registered: 11/17/20
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 LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base 
#27066523 - 12/01/20 02:48 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/1/lsd-use-ranks-prompts-testing-usmc-base/
The Marine Corps is conducting random drug testing at one base in North Carolina because of reports that personnel there are using the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD.
The 2nd Marine Division in Jacksonville, N.C., has conducted nearly 4,000 random tests for LSD since the start of the summer.
Maj. Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the division commander, said the recent rise in LSD use among sailors and Marines on the base has prompted them to change how they test for illegal substances.
In the past, the Department of Defense drug lab only accepted individual samples for LSD testing as part of a larger law enforcement investigation. Because of the spike in LSD use at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, random testing for LSD is now an option, officials said.
“We have a drug problem in the 2nd Marine Division,” Maj. Gen. Donovan said in a statement. “We are committed to identifying the violators of our ethos. The vast majority of Marines within the 2nd Marine Division routinely uphold our core values and they deserve to know that the Marines to their left and right are doing the same.”
Edited by Study The CNS (12/01/20 04:26 PM)
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durian_2008
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Study The CNS]
#27066670 - 12/01/20 04:15 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
We are committed to identifying the violators of our ethos.
There are hundreds of formally-sanctioned experiments, also, including paranormalism.
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 sonoramo
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Study The CNS]
#27066933 - 12/01/20 06:43 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Has anyone here ever been tested for LSD or indole compounds? I wonder how those tests would be administered, how sensitive and how reliable they are?
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DancingWolf
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: sonoramo]
#27067317 - 12/01/20 09:48 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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I'm not sure if you are asking in general, or specific to military/government, but I'll post my experience with drug testing in general while touching on LSD. I have never been tested for LSD, nor have I ever failed a drug test. I imagine that testing for LSD would involve a hair-follicle test, despite it's dubious reliability. Apparently, LSD has a very narrow window in which it can be detected.
see here: https://psychologenie.com/hair-follicle-drug-test-detection-times
Retired 0311 here, 3/3 ( Hawaii ), 2010-2014. (honorable discharge)
Recruiters will issue one or more piss tests, the usual instant results / party drug test; they will also do background checks but nothing invasive like blood samples. Onward to the fleet.
Since I was in Hawaii, you can probably imagine that higher ups tested every other week / month for party drugs and it was indeed random. In some instances, we would get a test before and after leave blocks (vacation); in other instances, it would be one test and then nothing for several months. Even still, there were one or two instances were we had a test, then a few days later we had another test. I recall at least two tests in Afghanistan because some people wanted to be stupid, and no tests in Okinawa.
We were screened for the usual party drugs like cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy/MDMA, and other drugs such as meth, heroin, and opiates. Higher would hype the tests up a lot and claim they are tested in the same manner as olympic athletes but I know better. I believe each box of piss samples was tested for one substance, and the next box for another, rather than all bottles tested for all substances. I'm not privy to how the lab is run so they may have been dividing the samples of each box for each test. Higher always asked ahead of time if someone used prescriptions so they didn't become an issue.
At the time, spice, bathsalts, K2, synthetic THC/weed, were just getting started and it took a few years for the tests to catch up. TMK, those are now easy to test for and are included in the tested drugs.
For a drug test, you get stripped down to green on green PT uniform (T-shirt and underwear). You are supposed to piss into the cup while an NCO watches over your shoulder and observes your meat going inside the bottle and fill, although that rarely happened and he would stand further back. Flushing was hit and miss, and sometimes made people angry but I usually always flushed the toilet since it was an unofficial option to dip your bottle in the toilet water and take your chances on everyone else's piss if you knew you were going pop for something. You cap the bottle, and hold it at shoulder height like a criminal so it's harder to adulterate. Once in front of command, you would sign the logs for a barcode or something and tape over the bottle with a red security seal and initial in big letters. Might I add that the place would literally stink like piss when testing the entire company / 100+ people in such a small area.
In as far as my knowledge goes, LSD falls into the drugs that weren't tested for. Mescaline, mushrooms, steroids, pro-hormones, research chemicals used in steroid cycles, etc, were a lot of what was not tested for. Although steroids can be tested for via hair-follicle testing and if someone turned into superman and drew too much attention to themselves, testing was an option; although, I have never seen it employed. Testing is expensive and unit budgets are limited. I was once selected for a "random" on-duty alcohol screening and when I got to battalion, it seemed to be mostly the non-drinkers who were getting breath checked. I have my doubts that it was really random.
Before you think you can just shave all your hair off, there are more places than just your head to take a hair sample from and waxing your eyebrows, nose hairs, etc, isn't an option.
I did a quick search and there seems to be substance testing kits on the market today that can easily and readily test for LSD, among other substances, but I'm not sure if that also tests piss samples. They seem to be more for testing something before it enters the body. Most likely any LSD test will involve a hair follicle test since it's already used with the military. The tests are fairly reliable as far as I know. The test is performed in a laboratory setting and not an off the shelf kit, so there are some standards. A blood sample is also an option but it's along side the hair follicle test, in that I never saw it used.
Terminal Lance and IhatetheUSMC will probably have more up-to-date, first hand information specific to government drug testing if that is what you seek.
A word on hair follicle tests, they aren't 100% reliable and can't determine how some drugs got there. This makes them dubious to base firings on / career ending action. Steroids need not apply though since it's pretty hard for injectable anabolics to get into your hair without you actually using them.
https://jolt.richmond.edu/2018/08/13/issues-with-hair-follicle-drug-testing/
TL;DR, it will probably be a hair follicle test if someone knows you used LSD within the last day or so. Blood work or "labs" as it's commonly called, will also reveal LSD use.
There are some highly specialized tests that I doubt would ever be used outside of probation settings. Specialized testing usually calls for money, and budgets are limited. Anyone taking LSD in the military while keeping to himself, shouldn't have anything to worry about. Specialized testing is too expensive, and too invasive to do on everyone.
GC-MS – Gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry, testing can find LSD in piss samples.
Abuscreen – Screens whole blood, blood serum, urine, and stomach contents for LSD and its metabolites.
EMIT – Different series of tests carried out to detect LSD, again testing levels in blood serum and urine.
https://thethirdwave.co/lsd-drug-tests/
On a ranting note. The Marines don't have a drug problem, the USMC has a problem with people liking drugs. The zero tolerance policy needs to go.
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Amanita86
OTD Keymaster
Registered: 09/26/12
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: DancingWolf]
#27067327 - 12/01/20 09:58 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who might derive some positivity out of an LSD experience more than young marines getting ready for the dance.
Shit like that makes me wonder if it’s all a ruse and this is some test to see how marines react to LSD. It’ll be declassified in 20 years.
--------------------
 Orange clock, pencil
"They threw me off the hay truck about noon..."
*Mark 15:34 
Gam zeh ya’avor...
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sonoramo
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: DancingWolf]
#27067346 - 12/01/20 10:16 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
DancingWolf said:
I'm not sure if you are asking in general, or specific to military/government, but I'll post my experience with drug testing in general while touching on LSD. ...
 thank you for that very complete rundown. I stopped using mushrooms for several decades for no reason other than I had jobs that required random drug testing. Then I realized nobody actually tested for LSD or psilocybin. I'm really glad I got up the courage to resume.
Quote:
On a ranting note. The Marines don't have a drug problem, the USMC has a problem with people liking drugs. The zero tolerance policy needs to go.
I have a friend who's a high-ranking career Army officer. He is counting down the days until he knows he will no longer get piss-tested, and then he can find out what the rest of us are actually up to. In his case, failing a test could cost him his career and his pension, even though he's a Purple Heart recipient. That makes no sense.
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DonJuan7
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: sonoramo]
#27069303 - 12/03/20 05:10 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
sonoramo said:
Has anyone here ever been tested for LSD or indole compounds? I wonder how those tests would be administered, how sensitive and how reliable they are?
This Quest Diagnostics brochure on the website has a date of 2013 and says that only urine tests can be done but only for 8 hours after use.
Do a search and let us know what else you find.
http://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/companies/employer/drug-screening/drugs-tested/lsd/
Clock this link - Download our reference guide for Common Drugs of Abuse.
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sonoramo
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: DonJuan7]
#27069650 - 12/03/20 09:29 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
DonJuan7 said:
...
Clock this link - Download our reference guide for Common Drugs of Abuse.
As expected, LSD, mushrooms, psilocybin, DMT, indole are not to be found on their "Common Drugs of Abuse" page. I think it's very interesting that psychedelic use seems to be increasing significantly, yet they don't appear on "Drugs of Abuse" lists. My guess is that reasons for this include:
- Psychedelics are still much less common than the other drugs.
- It takes $$$ to develop tests, and the Quests of the world just haven't caught up yet.
- Psychedelics as a class have low potential for addiction. At least, compared with other psychotropics.
- Companies are paying for this, and they demand tests for drugs that impair productivity or cause accidents.
- People who use psychedelics are more likely to be the "creative element" in any company, and the last thing management wants to do is stifle their corporate creativity.
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Failboat
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: sonoramo]
#27070141 - 12/03/20 02:10 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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People don't usually develop a noticeable habit that causes problems so businesses don't care as alcohol or tobacco consumption is ugly enough to manage.
As for soldiers using LSD it's not suprising given the duration of effects and the wide-eyed stimulation it often induces. After all it's discreet and safe.
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Study The CNS
Anecdotal Subtext
Registered: 11/17/20
Posts: 1,588
Loc: Mexico
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Failboat]
#27073960 - 12/05/20 06:02 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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skOsH
Functionally dysfunctional
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Study The CNS]
#27075089 - 12/06/20 11:19 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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It's probably extremely effective for their PTSD so that's why they keep taking it?
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Study The CNS
Anecdotal Subtext
Registered: 11/17/20
Posts: 1,588
Loc: Mexico
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: skOsH]
#27075296 - 12/06/20 01:20 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Marines get pushed in training very hard. It is absolutely no mystery why that alone would induce a behavior to seek happiness chemically. If people who never went into a fighting unit actually comprehended what Marines and some soldiers go thru, in great specificity, they would scratch their heads and offer questions. Unfortunately, we are in a phase of Ape-Tells-Ape what to do relationship with one another, and true intelligence is more like pseudo-intel when it comes to actually caring about one's fighting forces.
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DancingWolf
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Study The CNS]
#27076105 - 12/06/20 08:28 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Heh, maybe special forces get pushed hard, but regular grunts? No. Although secret squirrels may have harder and more specialized training, they don't do the dumb stuff that general population / regular have to do.
Why people seek an escape in the USMC is more about how people are treated than the difficulty of the training.
For the good stuff...
Most of my days consisted of waking up for morning formation, saying I'm still alive, then either working out, getting breakfast, or just plain going back to bed until whatever brief / training was scheduled (If any at all). I often went to the gym on work hours as well. Actual training only takes up maybe a few months of garrison time out of the whole workup. Obama slashing and burning our budget canceled nearly all of our training in Okinawa / Japan, except Forest Light and few cross training events. Even Afghanistan wasn't that bad. Our local national police dipped out which left us without enough people to leave the wire and go patrol with, so we spent the first three months lifting weights, cooking in an out door kitchen, and getting our tan on. Of course if you are in a unit stationed out of Camp Pendleton and not Hawaii, you may find yourself training a lot more simply due to the easy access of facilities.
Tbh, a lot of the training is actually fun but not all of it. I went to Combat Marksmanship Coaches Course, as well as Animal Husbandry; which is basically pack mule teams. Animal husbandry was literally a 2-3 week vacation from my unit. I learned to love hearing the suffering and misery from the people around me during road marches / hikes. (Most people do not use the first class gyms.)
The job itself is glorious.
The dumb stuff however... The stuff that causes people to seek an outlet...
People are unhappy in the USMC because the barracks conditions are garbage. People are treated more like equipment that talks, rather than people. I stayed in Mackie Hall aka Dirty Mackie and to say that one wing has broken AC, the other wing has broken water heating is fairly accurate. Hot water died on me as well, AC died in Okinawa. It's similar in Camp Schwab unless you get a POG barracks which has pretty much new everything. People can't leave the USMC without destroying their lives (do drugs / AWOL) but the feds can violate your contract and extend you as long as they like. People have to perform stupid tasks every other day, like walk in a line and pick up cigarette butts out of the grass; constantly being micromanaged like children, screwing with uniforms all the time, that is the stuff that will make people go mad. All hands sexual assault briefs because someone touched a woman, all hands DUI briefs because someone got a DUI in the unit. These take several hours even when command just clicks through the slides as fast as reasonably allowable and skip all but one break.
By far one of the dumbest things that exists in the USMC for no other purpose than to make peoples lives harder than they need to be is MCMAP or Marine Corp Martial Arts Program, which is essentially just enough dumb ideas to get you into a losing bar fight. If you stay in long enough to go to the instructors course and start getting tabs, then you may actually learn a thing or two. In a modern war, if the enemy is close enough that you have to resort to hands on combat then you have done something horribly wrong.
Ultimately, it's the failed system of keeping pointless and inefficient traditions for tradition's sake, allowing crap to float to the top by rewarding sadists, nepotism, and psychopaths, that ruin the USMC. It's said that 80% of grunts get out and I believe it since almost every one of my peers got out ASAP. The bad people and the those without an alternative choice stay in, the good ones get out. The exception being the bullies and all around jerks who never got some over seas and went PMO/police pipeline.
I will mention that everyone does have their own fix for all the stupid crap going on, mine was going to the gym all the time, eating comfort foods, anime, and digital art. Some people went to raves, partied, or blew their money at strip clubs. A lot of people take up some form of tobacco to deal with the shear asinine amount of dumb things involved.
TL;DR, Marines are pushed hard by the shear stupidity of the USMC, command, and the US federal government; not the training.
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Holybullshit
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: DancingWolf]
#27076649 - 12/07/20 07:08 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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While I wish it was true that "Obama" slashed the military's budget, sequestration can hardly be laid at his feet. No, that was a gambit to force cuts to social programs, played by your pals in the GOP.
And why would you expect defense spending to stay at 2008 levels forever? It was past time to draw down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless you are a proponent of endless war?
I'd like to remind you, that the US is responsible for nearly 40% of global military spending...spending 242% more than the next nearest country(China), but on a per capita basis we spend 1,221% more than China. Even on a %GDP basis we spend almost twice as much as China, at 3.4% vs 2%.
And China is our biggest trade partner, the chance that we go to war with each other is ZERO because the moment we did BOTH(and the world's) our economies would collapse to a level that would make sustained military effort impossible.
Edited by Holybullshit (12/07/20 07:25 AM)
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DancingWolf
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: Holybullshit]
#27079593 - 12/08/20 09:56 PM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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I believe you took a wrong turn while looking for the Political Discussion Forum, this is the Shroomery News Forum.
As for my rebuttal to your partisan attack, President Obama did a pretty poor job of working with congress for a compromise on sequestration and the debt ceiling. It was his job to work with congress so the American people get a good deal from their government, as it is and has been with every president. The budget cuts should have come with restrictions on where they can be made at, I.E limited to contractors, but it ultimately affected the line units and lowest people on the totem pole by having their unit budgets severely reduced. President Obama was the highest man, the Commander in Chief, and everything that happened during his term(s) I will lay exclusively at his feet. President Bush Jr has several wars laying at his feet, Reagan has the Iran-Contra conflict at his feet.
Not only did our training in Japan suffer, leaving us ill prepared for jungle and island conflict, but the Japanese, Mongolians, and Thais, where largely unable to train with us to the extent planned and their readiness also suffered for it. Essentially almost all formal training was canceled, with the exception of Forest Light. That event was exceptionally important to Japan because it was more of a statement that Japan was ready to join the US and the world militarily and a fairly big deal for their country.
I don't have "pals" in the GOP, nor do I have a political party; leave your arrogance at the door. I have been A-political for essentially all of my life but people like you keep trying to drag me into fighting over every facet of life. I'm not concerned with what other countries spend, nor is there anything I can do about the military industrial complex than spans every political party in the USA. I can't make other countries pay for their militaries, nor can I make the USA cease in defending them.
I posted my experience so that anyone reading might gain, but it seems to be attracting the wrong attention. I don't go out of my to stir the pot with other people and I live my life the best I can; I only ask other people do the same.
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Holybullshit
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Re: LSD use in the ranks prompts testing at USMC base [Re: DancingWolf]
#27080103 - 12/09/20 08:57 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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You are the one who first got political, I'm sorry you don't like people calling your bullshit but asserting that you are the only one allowed to make political comments in the news forum is telling.
I think you are confusing the executive branch with the legislative. The president doesn't write bills or make the budget, but they are responsible for actions carried out through bodies under their purview.
And accusing anyone but the GOP of not "working with" others is hilarious. Obama and most of the democratic party during his administration tried working with the other side repeatedly, tried negotiating in good faith, and it got them nowhere because GOP leadership is hellbent on practicing perpetual obstructionism at every level possible and sinking any and all democratic efforts no matter what the cost to our citizens and our democracy.
If you don't remember, sequestration was the result of compromise, it's what the GOP demanded in order to keep funding the government and undo the shutdowns(that they were responsible for) that were ravaging our country.
Edited by Holybullshit (12/09/20 09:11 AM)
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