Marine Corps Drug Testing

A temporary restraining order, issued to prevent the Marine Corps from drumming Staff Sgt. Michael Jordan out of the corps because he tested positive in a surprise drug test, was extended for 10 days Thursday by a federal judge. The Marine Corps should use the time to reconsider its action denying Jordan the special court-martial he requested to clear his name instead of being mustered out with a less-than-honorable discharge.

What also needs reconsideration is the corps’ fundamentally unfair policy of discharging personnel on the basis of a single urinalysis.

Jordan, a 10-year veteran stationed at El Toro, failed the drug test last June when his test results were positive for marijuana at a 379 level, high enough to indicate that he was completely under the influence of the drug. Several days later in three tests there were no traces of marijuana in Jordan’s system, which several experts said raised strong doubts about the validity of the first test.

That, at least, should have raised some suspicion that an error might have been made through a false reading or mixed-up sample. At the very time Jordan was going through the tests, concern about the quality of drug testing was being raised in Congress. An official of Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment warned that the laboratory testing is often unreliable and that a second test is always needed.

Jordan took a second test that he passed cleanly. A third and fourth test showed no trace of drugs. But the Marine Corps ignored them and, offering no other reasons and using only the first test results, decided to boot him out. The military may have the legal authority to take that sort of arbitrary action, but that doesn’t make it right.

Drug users shouldn’t be kept on duty. But too much is at stake for the individual, the military and the public to brand anyone a drug user without positive proof. That would risk the indiscriminate loss of highly trained career personnel for no valid reason and would undermine confidence in the system of military justice.