The leader of the Camp Humphreys drug ring has had his day in court:
Despite an apologetic unsworn statement, a soldier once described as the “biggest drug dealer at Camp Humphreys” will not get a second chance to stay in the Army.
Military judge Col. David Conn sentenced Pfc. Carlton Jones, an 18th Medical Command generator mechanic, to eight months in prison, demotion to E-1 and a bad conduct discharge at the end of a court-martial Thursday.
Jones agreed to plead guilty to wrongful use and distribution of marijuana as part of a deal to drop an assault charge and keep his sentence under 12 months in prison, according to legal officials.
Jones was the last of three soldiers court-martialed in connection with a July 12 “sting” by criminal investigators.
Pfc. Elisa Gonzalez, Jones’ roommate at the time of the sting, and Pvt. Clifton Smikle were also sent to jail on drug-related charges. [Stars & Stripes]
I’m glad to see these guys getting sent to jail and kicked out of the Army. I am a big believer that anyone caught using drugs should be separated from the military because using drug is just a sign of things to come. Now that the Camp Humphreys drug ring is all in jail, there is a whole crew of potheads at Camp Casey that need to be dealt with next.
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11:53 pm on February 15th, 2008 1
Why is he getting punished? There are no American drug pushers in Korea. It’s only the Korean media printing lies about foreigners.
8:13 am on February 16th, 2008 2
GI,
Since you like to gather stats and crunch numbers, do you know if drug use, or the convictions for drug use have gone up since the Iraq campaigns (and the increased number of deployments/rotations) started? Maybe it’s just an anomaly, but it seems we’ve heard more about drugs in the military here in Korea in the last year than I can remember the nine or so years preceding…it makes me curious if drug use (in the military, overall, not just here) has gone up and if so, why?
9:07 am on February 16th, 2008 3
Nomad,
There have been three major drug busts in the last six months. There was the Osan Percocet Gang which involved 9 security officers all junior enlisted. These guys were busted because someone who had knee surgery was taking percocet and allowed her buddies to take the percocet as well. They didn’t think Percocet would come up on the urinalysis but it did.
They were all junior enlisted which means they probably never served in Iraq and this case is just junior enlisted people being stupid.
The Humphreys drug ring included three people who were all privates. Since they are all privates, Korea is probably their first duty station meaning they war had nothing to do with them getting busted. If they did serve in Iraq they probably would have brought it up in the trial as an excuse, but didn’t which further leads me to believe the war had nothing to do with it.
The Camp Casey case I’m not so sure about because none of the ranks have been revealed yet. They were busted because one person mailed pot to himself and it was detected by Korean security at Inchon. CID laid a sting operation and probably the people busted were the ones the guy who mailed himself the pot was selling it to. The fact a guy mailed pot to himself and sold it to other soldiers shows that his intent was distribution from the start.
I’m sure once this goes to trial more details will be released. I think the issue that needs to be worked out is whether the ROKs will try this case or the military.
As far as drug use overall in the military I haven’t seen anything showing increases. If there was a report it would have been on the front page of the New York Times by now I would imagine.
Personal experience for me is that stateside drug use in the military is a much larger problem than in Korea. Marijuana, meth, and ecstasy are the drugs I have seen people get busted for the most.
10:12 am on February 16th, 2008 4
I haven’t been back to the states since I left in 1993 and at that time, if I remember right, the military was claiming that drug use was way down (and the few articles I’ce read since then also said the same thing). I was just curious if drug use has gone back up again - and I wasn’t pointing to the Iraq war in general as the cause but possibly relaxed recruitment standards.
Back when I first came in in the early 80’s, we had people get popped all the time for pot (many that I knew and worked with) but during my last 10-15 years in, I don’t remember any at all, at least none that I knew personally.
Yes, those three you mention were all “major” cases, but still, three major cases in one year is three more than I can remember in the preceding last nine years. But then, I also have a bad memory so I could be wrong
11:38 am on February 16th, 2008 5
I think it could be because soldiers are figuring out new ways to fool the urinalysis. Some may work better than others but the perception of some soldiers getting away with doing drugs encourages others to try it too.