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

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.

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?