Nine members of an army missile unit on Penghu were taken into custody early yesterday for sus-pected drug use while patronizing a local KTV, police said.
The soldiers, found to be in possession of MDMA and Ketamine, had been administered urine tests to see if any of them had taken drugs. Most of them were non-commissioned officers. Four tablets of MDMA and nine Ketamine tablets were seized from the soldiers as police launched a surprise check on the KTV.
The incident, the first of its kind in Penghu, has caught the attention of the army general headquarters since it involves nine soldiers with one of the top-secret units in the region -- the 22nd Tien Kung missile company.
The missile company is armed with Tien Kung-series air defense missiles, which were developed by the military's Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology.
Army first
The detention marks the first time that personnel with such a missile company have faced drug-abuse allegations.
Given the seriousness of the matter, the army general headquarters yesterday sent two generals to attend a regular press conference of the Ministry of National Defense.
Major-General Li Ching-kuo (
"If any of these soldiers were proven to have taken drugs, he will either face legal punishment or discipline by the army," Li said.
Li said that drug abuse is one of the three major evils that the army is eager to eliminate from the service.
The other two evils he cited were suicide and fatal automobile accidents.
"Drug abuse might be a serious problem in the army but it is not as serious as described in some news reports," Li said.
False allegations
"A recent example is reports that a soldier with an artillery company told police upon his arrest on drug charges that 20 to 30 people in his unit had the same drug addiction," he said.
"The allegations were later proven to be false. Our investigation showed that the company had only eight to nine problematic soldiers. These soldiers' problems were not with drugs, but with their minds," Li said.
Despite Li's words, it is a fact that drug abuse rates have been rising rapidly in the military in recent years.
Soldiers were initially considered to be the major group of drug abusers in the military, but career officers are quickly catching up.
To prevent the situation from getting worse, the army has taken measures such as launching careful body checks or even conducting urine tests on soldiers and officers returning to their camp from leave.
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