While public safety was the forerunning concern over the need for mass drug testing of our military professionals there were other reasons cited by those in power for the desire to put such measures into effect. They believed that men returning from Vietnam (no matter what military branch they belonged in) had become highly confused as to where the lines should lay in regard to morals and ethics and values. Traditional beliefs were questioned on a regular basis by men who were considered to be “shell-shocked” or as we refer to it today Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Those in power believed that it was drug use by soldiers and not what they had seen and experienced during this time of war, which was the cause of the disgruntled attitudes and behaviors that caused so many returning soldiers to not be able to return to normal lives with their friends and families.

It was of course the “confusion of morals and ethics” that was the driving force behind the war on drugs. Working under the belief that drugs were the root of all problems within the home. It was this that brought mandatory drug testing on a mass scale out of the military and into the world of employment. It was believed that drug use of any kind was a direct comment on the decline of ‘traditional values’ in our society. It was believed that it was not just a symptomatic result of the war and the schism created amongst the people of the country because of the war, but that drug use was in fact the direct cause of the dissention towards government by the American Peoples.