PECULIAR PLACE TO FIND DRUG PROBLEM

Soldiers Face 70 Charges At CFB Wainwright

Soldiers jokingly call the place Wainwrightistan, the Canadian Forces
Base in Wainwright, east of Edmonton, not too far from the
Saskatchewan border. Bearded men wander the dusty streets of dozens of
shabby mock-Afghan villages. There is a scale version of the Kandahar
Air Field. There are mullahs, and jurgas, and arranged marriages. And,
like the real Afghanistan, thereare, evidently, drugs.

On Wednesday, the Canadian Forces announced that military police
charged nine soldiers at CFB Wainwright, and three former soldiers,
with serious drug offences involving serious drugs. Twelve soldiers,
70 charges in all, ranging from the manufacture of the hallucinogenic
drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, to the distribution and possession of
cocaine, Ecstasy and marijuana.

It was a strange place to find it. CFB Wainwright is famous for being
the last stop for soldiers deploying to Afghanistan. This is the spot
for battle preparation --the "last full dress rehearsal for war," as
one military writer put it. Soldiers practise for the hairy combat of
village fighting, suicide bombing and IEDs. And for their casualties.

The government has spent millions creating a place on Alberta's plains
where the danger of war feels uncomfortably real. Hallucinations and
drug highs would seem an odd pursuit, if not an entirely
counterproductive one.

"It just doesn't fit in with the military culture," says Allan English,
professor of Canadian Military History at Queen's University and author of
Understanding Military Culture: A Canadian Perspective. "If you're going
[to] places like Afghanistan and you're getting into combat, you don't want
people that are impaired."

"The big issue is to build a cohesive team where people depend on each
other, and that's really breaking a bond of trust to use drugs," Prof.
English says.

These were not, it turns out, soldiers on their way to Afghanistan.
Those still at the base were recruits, stationed at Wainwright,
according to a Canadian Forces (CF) spokeswoman, "awaiting training or
awaiting release from the CF after not completing their training."

They are all low-ranking soldiers. The accused who had not already
been rejected as unsuitable for service will have a hard time proving
why they should not be now -- at least after the Director of Military
Prosecutions decides whether to seek a court martial.

"These charges show the continuous commitment of the Canadian Forces
Military Police to ensure a work environment free of drugs for
[Canadian Forces] personnel," Major Daniel Dandurand, the officer
commanding the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service's
Western Region Detachment, said on Wednesday.

Drugs are not, it would seem, much a part of the Canadian Forces
experience. In Afghanistan, where marijuana fields are as commonplace
as Albertan canola, anyone who has spent time with soldiers at the
Kandahar Air Field, on patrol, and at Forward Operating Bases, will
attest that these crops are, for soldiers, strictly part of the
scenery. In a force of roughly 65,000 soldiers, there were, according
to the latest report by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, just 150
drug-related charges in 2008 (half of which were for "possession of
cannabis") -- a 25% lower rate than occurs in the Canadian population
at large.

While careful recruiting procedures and training aren't fail-safe, the
forces have a reputation for vigilance. An undercover sting operation
in the Canadian Navy in 2006 led to charges against four sailors of
the HMCS Saskatoon, including an officer, for cocaine possession.
After the incident, the military introduced surprise drug tests.

On Wednesday's arrest was the fruit of an investigation begun after
the arrests in April of four soldiers at CFB Wainwright for dealing
drugs. Military police brought in Mounties, with drug dogs, and
experts in investigating drug labs. Privates David McKinnell and
Matthew Wright were allegedly producing DMT in a "clandestine lab" and
trafficking other drugs. Privates Michael Masserey and Glen Morgan
were accused of trafficking. The others were charged with possession.
They were not dealing the drugs off-base, according to the Forces.

New recruits are always the most vulnerable, Prof. English says. They
are untrained. They have not been acculturated into the military
mindset. They may not be the sort who can.

"One of the biggest influences on individual behaviour is what they
call 'primary group behaviour' " -- in an army, that might be a unit
or artillery group; people working together daily. "These are the
people they depend upon," he says. "Typically these PATs [personnel
awaiting training] are just at loose ends, doing menial jobs, got a
lot of time on their hands. And what they do is they form their own
primary group around some other activity."