The Great Weed Debate  

"So many say "not in my unit" guess what that doesn't mean sh@t. Your unit had idiosyncrasies, every unit had them. Vietnam units used mary j period. And no judgement. It was a different time. Pilots should never fly high In todays industry. But in todays USA we shouldn't be randommed either."

Excepting that single pilot, who never had aircraft commander, nobody toked up, PERIOD. Weed has a distinctive aroma, in building with cubicles as rooms sharing a common ceiling, one would have noticed that smell. It didn't happen.

What happened 'downtown', off-base is a whole 'nother question, but nobody, repeat nobody appeared smelling of smoke or showing signs of cannabis. Period. Alcohol? Yeppers, definitely. But almost no weed, at least in the flight crews. We had more discipline problems from racism than dope.

I was not a grunt and never had a ground assignment, but flight crews in 1969-70 wanted to be 100% on the ball, clear minded and present in their duties. We weren't heroes but we worked hard every day we flew and pushed the envelope often enough that pilots avoided all extemporaneous challenges. Skipping along kissing the ground with a low-rotor beeping at you was not at all unusual. Stupid was quickly weeded out.

Losing a flight assignment or possibly one's wings encouraged abstenance far more effectively than potential legal issues. Remember, it was a 10-1, 20-1 challenge to get a flight school slot and somewhere north of 50% washed out of those slots. In flight school and in-country, going weeks with a couple hours sleep a night was enough of a problem...

After seperating from the service I was interviewed regarding the toker pilot possibly being charged with war crimes... Wasn't charged that I know of and I had no direct knowledge of the incident but that's indicative of the judgement he displayed.  I suspect it's called 'dope' because it exagerates 'dopey' tendencies.  He once brought his C&C slick in covered in self-administered M79 shrapnel holes. That, I do have direct knowledge of.