AIR FORCE ACADEMY INCREASES DRUG TESTS

38 Cadets Have Been Ensnared In Scandal

AIR FORCE ACADEMY -- The Air Force Academy has stepped up drug testing and
is putting more classroom emphasis on ethics amid the biggest drug scandal
in the school's 47-year history.

Thirty-eight cadets out of 4,300 have been implicated in the scandal that
began in December 2000.

In addition, six cadets have been charged or convicted of crimes such as
larceny and sodomy, including the former president of the class of 2003,
who is accused of stealing $9,000 from a class activity fund.

Academy officials have no simple explanation for the rash of crime, which
has extended into this month with the arrest of a student on charges of
raping a female cadet.

"We rely on the American people to send us their best. Every now and then
we don't get the right people," said Col. Mark Hyatt, director of the
Academy Center for Character Development.

The drug scandal -- involving mainly the use of Ecstasy and marijuana -- is
the biggest problem for the academy since 105 cadets accused of cheating
resigned in 1965.

Academy officials have increased random drug tests in which cadets are
summoned to the clinic and told to urinate into a cup. In addition, the
academy is working ethics lessons into courses across the curriculum.

Of the 38 cadets implicated, eight were court-martialed and seven of those
went to prison.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., has had three courts-martial
in the past decade. A cadet was charged in a drug case last year and two
were accused of stealing more than $40,000 in cadet-store merchandise in 2000.

In 1996, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., went through problems
like the Air Force Academy's.

"The kids that are coming out of these public high schools don't know what
honor is," said retired Lt. Gen. A.P. Clark, a former Air Force Academy
superintendent. "They have quite an adjustment to make when they come to an
academy that has such high standards of integrity and ethics."