Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jul 2002
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2002 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Authors: Anna Griffin and Peter Smolowitz

SURVEILLANCE OF CLUBS NETTED 84 AT LEJEUNE

CAMP LEJEUNE - The drug investigation that led to the arrests of 84 Camp 
Lejeune Marines and sailors began two years ago when Wilmington ravers 
noticed a few high-and-tight haircuts among a throng of dancing, 
tablet-popping partyers.

The largest drug bust in Camp Lejeune history closed Wednesday with 
reminders from Marine leaders that the service is, for good and bad, a 
reflection of society.

Camp Lejeune is a city of more than 100,000 people, half of them Marines, 
with its own police and firefighting forces, its own commercial strip and 
its own struggles with crime.

"A Marine is still a human being. He's going to go out and socialize. And 
in a few cases, he's going to make a very bad mistake," said Robin Knapp, 
who supervised the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Code-named Operation Xterminator -- the X stands for Ecstasy, the most 
prevalent drug seized -- the two-year inquiry was actually a collection of 
103 separate investigations triggered by an informant's call to Wilmington 
police. Taken individually, many cases appear no different from other 
incidents involving Marines out for a good time.

Camp Lejeune is located about 230 miles east of Charlotte in Jacksonville, 
which has the collection of strip clubs and tattoo parlors often found in 
military towns. The 246-square-mile coastal base keeps a running list of 
local businesses that are off-limits to Marines. It often tops two dozen.

But there's a difference between blowing off steam and risking death. 
Thirty years ago, trouble for a Marine in Jacksonville meant getting drunk, 
slugging someone and spending a night in the brig.

Among the $1.4 million in narcotics seized during Operation Xterminator 
were 4 kilograms of cocaine, 13,000 doses of LSD, 56 ounces of the 
so-called "date rape" drug GHB, 405 units of steroids and 31,000 tablets of 
Ecstasy -- a designer hallucinogenic that pumps up the heart rate and can, 
in rare instances, lead to cardiac arrest and respiratory failure. Ecstasy 
is easy to produce and, at $20 to $40 a tablet, a relatively cheap high.

"A lot of Marines -- and civilians for that matter -- view Ecstasy as a 
safe drug, a recreational drug," said Maj. Steve Cox, Camp Lejeune's 
spokesman. "They're very wrong."

Though military use of drugs such as heroin and cocaine has dropped since 
the Vietnam War, all four military branches have seen an increase in recent 
years of designer drugs such as Ecstasy and LSD.

Recent struggles to find recruits have compounded the military's drug 
problem, said retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, a former inspector general 
at the Pentagon who is now a vice president for policy at the conservative 
Family Research Council.

Of the roughly 3 million drug tests issued to military personnel in fiscal 
year 2001, fewer than 1 percent came back positive.

A Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday he did not know how many of the 
positive tests resulted in a GI being discharged. Maginnis said it happened 
in less than a third of the cases.

"The idea that there is a zero tolerance policy is ludicrous," he said. 
"Commanders are given a ceiling on how many they can discharge. It's kind 
of driven down from the top. We can only recruit so many people, so you can 
only discharge so many people."

Investigators said the drug use they discovered wasn't a ring so much as a 
loosely connected network of dealers and mostly recreational users. The 
inquiry started in Wilmington nightclubs that specialized in raves, rowdy 
dance parties featuring pumping techno music, elaborate, pulsing lights 
and, occasionally, hallucinogenic drug use. It grew to include private 
parties in Jacksonville and a few cases of drug use within the barracks at 
Camp Lejeune.

Eighty-two Marines and sailors have pleaded guilty or been convicted in 
military court, with defendants receiving three-to 19-year sentences. Those 
with shorter sentences are serving their time at the Camp Lejeune brig, 
while those with longer sentences are at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. All 
received dishonorable or bad conduct discharges, which means they lose any 
veteran's benefits. Two military cases are pending.

Ninety-nine civilians, including a Defense Department employee and the 
spouse of a Marine, have been charged. Many of those cases are pending. All 
of the Marines and sailors charged were enlisted personnel.

Investigators believe this pattern of designer drug use was unique to Camp 
Lejeune, though they did discover a few connections with other N.C. bases. 
They did not find any drug laboratories in the searches, nor was any one 
person identified as the kingpin. (The man facing the longest list of 
charges pleaded guilty and now appears in a Marine Corps educational video 
about the dangers of Ecstasy. He taped his comments from a cell at Camp 
Lejeune.)

Besides similar social interests, there were no obvious connections -- such 
as similar service histories or assignments -- among most of those charged. 
None was part of Marine Expeditionary Units, the self-contained fighting 
groups that deploy overseas for six months and were an important part of 
the early stages of the war in Afghanistan.

The operation relied on undercover work, with one federal agent spending 
six months deep within the Wilmington rave culture under an assumed 
identity and 16 other officers going "shallow" undercover -- meaning they 
would dip in and out of the party scene to buy drugs and collect other 
evidence. Agents had expected to spend 90 days looking into Ecstasy use 
when they began in February 2000, but found enough evidence and potential 
criminal acts to stretch their work over more than two years.

An hour's drive from Camp Lejeune, Wilmington, home to UNC Wilmington and 
adjacent to several beaches, is popular among Marines, and soldiers and 
aviators from other N.C. bases.

One popular military hangout in Wilmington was a downtown club called .com. 
Police have since shut it down, said Capt. G.A. Pulley of the 
Wilmington/New Hanover County vice unit. Private raves there often started 
as late as 2 a.m. and lasted as long as 18 hours. Police revoked the club's 
liquor permit, but people paid $2.50 for water to avoid dehydration from 
dancing and the drugs.

Informants and undercover agents identified the Marines and sailors during 
the course of regular vice work, Pulley said. The first clue was their 
crewcuts.

"You don't want to think of your boys in the military doing it," Pulley 
said, "but you've got to remember, they're just human."
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