Legal Question in Military Law in Georgia

Re: False Positive Drug Screen

Under NO circumstances should you ever agree to meet with the CID! I've been doing this for 34 years and there is NOTHING good that will come of your talking to them. They refuse to believe that drug testing is fallible or that there are "false positives."

They will NOT tell you that the military in fact does NOT even test for cocaine [it's too difficult and expensive and is out of your system in any event in 12-18 hours], but rather they will test for a pseudo-metabolite of cocaine.

The other reason that they want you "there" is because they will then badger you - "OK, SGT X,if you're innocent, then of course you won't mind giving us some hair samples so we can do follow-up testing?" "No, Hmmmm, you must be guilty!"

That gets them around the probable cause requirement for a search warrant, and cocaine can be detected in hair for a LONG time - years, if one's hair is long.

Go to the Army Trial Defense Services [TDS] Office at your Post ASAP - a lawyer is needed to "broker" the info from your MD and keep you out of the CID's clutches.

Good luck to you and PLEASE do not try and handle this yourself!

Re: False Positive Drug Screen

If you talk to CID and tell them about the letter from your doctor, they will do everything they can to try to disprove that possible defense. I would suggest that you NOT talk to them at all and do NOT tell them about this letter. CID is not really going to do any real investigation. They certainly are not going to investigate the drug lab to try to find a mistake or error in testing. All they are going to do is to try to get you to admit using drugs or to find out what your defense is so they can try to disprove it. If you tell them that you do not do drugs, you also face the possibility of being charged with making a false statement since they likely will believe that you used drugs based on the fact that you tested positive.

Do you have any idea whether the command plans to take this to Article 15 or to a court-martial. You have the right to refuse Article 15 punishment and frankly I suggest that you do so. A court-martial will be your only real chance to fight this and prove that you did not use cocaine. You and your attorney will have to prove that you did not use cocaine and/or that the lab messed up in testing, that the sample got contaminated or switched, or that a coaine derivative got into your system in some way that you did not know about. The labs make many mistakes but the services do not admit this although it is documented.

I hope this has helped. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any further questions.