MILITARY DRUG BUSTS LARGEST EVER

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Tipped two years ago that Marines were using and
selling the club drug Ecstasy, investigators opened what became the largest
military drug probe in recent years and arrested dozens of service
personnel on the corps' biggest East Coast base.

Authorities seized $1.4 million worth of illegal drugs, including 31,000
tablets of Ecstasy, 13,000 doses of LSD, 56 ounces of the "date rape" drug
GHB, 4,783 grams of cocaine and 405 units of steroids.

Investigators said Wednesday that 84 Marines and sailors were charged and
82 have been convicted in military courts. That included 61 people accused
of distributing Ecstasy and 23 accused of using it. None of those arrested
was an officer.

Those convicted will be dishonorably discharged at the end of their
sentences, which range from three to 19 years, and will lose pay and
veterans' benefits. Ninety-nine civilians also were charged; most of their
cases are pending in state courts.

Drug investigations in the military aren't new, but the Camp Lejeune
investigation was the first there to target Ecstasy, base spokesman Maj.
Steve Cox said.

The people implicated represent the fringes of the Marine Corps, Cox said.
Up to 60,000 active-duty personnel work at Camp Lejeune.

"It's not an epidemic by any means," he said. "From a Marine Corps
perspective, we view drug use as a societal issue. We would be naive to
think our Marines are not using drugs."

A so-called designer drug, Ecstasy is a hallucinogenic that increases heart
rate and respiration.

Other drug investigations in the military have involved smaller numbers of
people.

Thirty-eight cadets out of 4,300 at the Air Force Academy were implicated
in drug scandal there in 2000. In 1996, five midshipmen at the U.S. Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Md., were court-martialed and jailed on drug charges,
and 15 others were expelled.