Army says it's close to finalizing handheld Spice detector

The allure of synthetic marijuana. or Spice, lies mostly in its chameleon-like chemical blends that make it difficult to test.

By the time law enforcement officials have identified a compound and developed a test for it, the chemists who produce these synthetic cannabinoids have changed their recipes or created new compounds.

Since the drug first became popular in the mid-2000s, law enforcement officials have been one step behind.

But that could soon change.

Army researchers are in final stages of constructing a portable handheld device that harnesses the body’s reaction to all synthetic cannabinoids. It will be the first field-ready Spice detector, and Army officials hope to have a working prototype by the end of 2014.

“We needed a more generic test,” said Mark Griep, principal scientist on the project from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Weapons and Materials Research Directorate.

Spice testing is of particular interest for the military. According to a study due out in July from the University of Washington, Spice is the most-abused substance among active-duty Army personnel.

At first, the tester will be used to tell investigators whether a substance they have located is Spice, or at least contains synthetic cannabinoids. Investigators currently don’t have the tools to do field tests. All samples from within the Defense Department are sent to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory for evaluation and forensic investigation, creating a considerable backlog and long wait times for results. A servicemember might have Spice but not be charged if the substance contains compounds that the laboratory can’t test for.

“These laboratory tests can be very time-consuming, and the magnitude of the samples coming in has created quite a workload,” Griep said. “This sensor would provide an initial screening mechanism to cut out any samples that don’t contain synthetic cannabinoids,” so they don’t go to the lab.

Once the spice detector is in the field, Griep hopes to improve it so findings meet the forensic standards for legal prosecutions. Marine Corps officials in Okinawa, where spice usage was first identified by the Navy in 2008, said that would be a game changer. Most Marines caught with Spice are administratively separated instead of court-martialed, especially overseas, due to costs and logistics of flying lab technicians in for testimony. Forensic testing would eliminate the need for such considerations.

How it works

The tester works by harnessing the power of the human body, Griep said. All synthetic cannabinoids bind to cannabinoid receptors in the body and cause a reaction when these compounds are introduced.

The detector mimics this process by using the same receptors that are in the human body, so the device alerts investigators when a reaction occurs -- meaning that synthetic cannabinoids are present in the sample.

“So if it’s going to cause an effect in your body, then this sensor will potentially detect it,” Griep said.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s prototype biosensor model comes at a time when about 1 percent of military personnel may be using synthetic marijuana, according to the Defense Department.

The compounds are dangerous because they are unlabeled and unregulated.

“It’s really quite dangerous, especially for kids,” said DEA spokesman Joseph Moses. “It presents a huge challenge for the DEA and law enforcement in general.”

It is hard to quantify how many servicemembers have been arrested, convicted or separated for Spice use or possession. The Army does not keep statistics on separations due to Spice usage; however, investigators positively identified Spice, bath salts or other synthetic substances in 1,263 cases in fiscal 2013, down from 1,675 a year earlier. These cases often involved multiple individuals. Air Force officials did not respond to repeated requests for information.

Between fiscal years 2012 and 2014, the Navy saw a 430 percent increase in the number of samples sent for analysis, from 11,840 to 62,859, Navy officials said. However, they said that is due to certain synthetic cannabinoids being added to their standard testing panel for urinalysis in December 2013.

During that same time period, positive tests decreased from 305 in fiscal 2012 to 117 in 2013. There have been 10 cases this year.

The most notable cases for the Navy occurred in 2011 when 64 sailors were busted for Spice on the USS Carl Vinson, and 28 were arrested on the USS Ronald Reagan.

During the briefing for newcomers at Marine Corps base Camp Foster in Okinawa, officials warn servicemembers about Spice, which is prevalent in Japan despite steps taken by the Japanese government to limit its use.

Marine officials in Okinawa reported 56 “spice incidents” in 2011, according to Col. Peter Rubin, staff judge advocate for Marine Corps Installations Pacific in Okinawa. This could mean anything from someone being caught with Spice, admitting to its use or reporting seeing someone else possessing or using Spice. The number of incidents dropped to 46 in 2012 and 29 in 2013. There have been seven cases this year.

From 2011 until now, no Marines from MCIPAC and III Marine Expeditionary Force have tested positive for Spice in urinalysis tests, Rubin said.

“It appears to be going down but sometimes it’s hard to tell,” he said, “ It’s not to the level that I would consider a major problem or concern.”

Rubin believes Marines are getting the message about Spice, and says that the Marine Corps will continue to use any means necessary to root out abuse.

burke.matt@stripes.com

Community colleges shorten their names

Small but growing numbers of community colleges are moving to drop the word “community” from their name, inspiring a sometimes passionate parsing of its meaning.

The move comes as more states allow two-year colleges, which are popular with military veterans, to confer bachelor’s degrees, which typically take four years or longer to complete.

Alert drivers in the Seattle area will notice over the next few months that 10 highway signs for three Seattle community colleges are being replaced with signs that say Seattle Colleges. Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, just unveiled its new, shorter-by-a-word logo and marketing campaign. Nearly all of Florida’s community colleges have changed their names; several now call themselves state colleges.

Officials at those institutions say the change reflects the evolving nature of community colleges — many of which were born as junior colleges. The schools have traditionally offered two-year and shorter-term technical degrees — and still do. But 21 states now allow them to also confer bachelor’s degrees. That’s more than double the number 10 years ago.

The phenomenon got its start in rural areas where access to four-year universities is often limited and has spread to schools that offer high-demand majors such as teaching and nursing.

Most of the more recent four-year programs similarly focus on degrees that lead to particular careers such as culinary arts and energy production. The more recent name changes also reflect a growing emphasis on college degrees by employers, along with a desire to increase enrollments and to upgrade the traditional image of community colleges as a place where students go if they can’t get admitted anywhere else.

“The changes are driven by a desire to remain more market relevant in the eyes of prospective students and employers,” says Tim Westerbeck, president of Eduvantis, a Chicago-based higher education consultant. “Often, schools change their name because of some externally-driven factor that makes their particular name a disadvantage and they want to symbolize reinvention.”

In surveys for Seattle Colleges, for example, high school principals said students “were sometimes put off by the name ‘community college’ and would come if it was called a college,” says spokeswoman Susan Kostick. The name change aims to “make it a more attractive place to students who can benefit from it and otherwise wouldn’t be going.”

Officials at Jackson College in Summit Township, Mich., which just opened a new international student institute, hope the shorter name will benefit recruitment efforts abroad. Educating international students “is a real growth potential and something we think we can do well,” says Cynthia Allen, vice president of administration.

But some educators say the receding visibility of “community” is a sign that two-year colleges are neglecting the populations they were created to serve. Funded in part by local taxpayers, community colleges grant admission to any students who want to enroll, regardless of their academic record. They typically represent the least expensive option in higher education.

“You take the word community out of their name and you wonder what happened to their mission,” says Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council of State Universities of Michigan, which lobbied unsuccessfully against the legislation enabling community colleges to confer four-year degrees.

College presidents have downplayed that concern. “This is a name change, not a mission change,” Seattle Colleges chancellor Jill Wakefield said in a March message announcing the unanimous vote by the district’s board of trustees. The decision came after a “year-long exploration of national and statewide trends,” surveys and other research.

Ty Pethe, a staff member at the recently renamed Seattle Colleges and president of a labor union representing Washington state employees, says students, faculty and staff were barely consulted in the process. The dropped word, he says, symbolizes a larger concern about faculty salaries, tuition and classroom needs.

The word community “shows inclusiveness, it shows a dedication to the area around us and the society around us,” he says. “To concentrate on changing the name without changing the actual environment seems to be disingenuous.”

To head VA, Obama selects former CEO of consumer products giant

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s nominee to take over the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs commanded Army troops, ran one of the world’s largest consumer-focused corporations, and now faces the daunting task of fixing an arm of the U.S. government that critics say is among the most corrupt in American history.

The president was expected to announce the nomination of Bob McDonald, 61, former president and CEO of Proctor & Gamble, as secretary of Veterans Affairs late Monday.

The choice of corporate executive Bob McDonald, 61, stands in sharp contrast to Obama’s first VA secretary, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, who resigned in May amid the turmoil of continual revelations about fraudulent scheduling practices and lengthy wait times for veterans seeking medical care at VA facilities.

The latest damning report, ordered by President Obama and released Friday, concludes the VA is suffering from “significant and chronic system failures” as well as a “corrosive culture.”

The VA’s Veterans Health Administration is the nation’s largest healthcare organization, serving nearly 9 million veterans at about 1,700 locations around the country. The organization is plagued by a lack of transparency and managers who frequently shake off suggestions for how to improve, said the report by deputy White House chief of staff Rob Nabors.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., summed up McDonald’s mission — if he gets the job — in near-apocalyptic tones.

“If confirmed by the Senate, Robert McDonald will inherit a Department of Veterans Affairs under a specter of corruption that may very well surpass anything in the history of American government,” Miller said.

On his final day as secretary, Shinseki expressed surprise at abusive actions by VA management, saying his decades in the military hadn’t prepared him for such behavior. By contrast, McDonald spent his career managing civilian workers for a massive company with a wide, globally dispersed array of consumer brands, leading some observers to suggest the president had decided to make customer satisfaction the priority at VA.

McDonald spent 33 years at Proctor & Gamble, during which he managed the Tide brand and later was named president of global fabric care before being promoted to president and CEO in 2009. P&G’s stock price grew by 60 percent under his leadership, according to his official biography on the company’s website. But he retired in May 2013, reportedly after months of grumbling by investors dissatisfied over earnings.

Although McDonald built a career outside the military, he reportedly graduated near the top of his class at West Point in 1975, and served mostly in the 82nd Airborne Division, rising to the rank of captain.

The choice of McDonald, who has a history of supporting Republican candidates, is expected to generate little political controversy, with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, calling McDonald “a good man, a veteran and a strong leader with decades of experience in the private sector. With those traits, he’s the kind of person who is capable of implementing the kind of dramatic, systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA.”

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said was eager to hear McDonald’s views on how to fix the VA.

“The VA needs significantly improved transparency and accountability, and it needs an increased number of doctors, nurses and other medical staff so that all eligible veterans get high-quality health care in a timely manner,” Sanders said in a statement.

McDonald is a surprising pick, said Paul Rieckhoff, CEO and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“McDonald is not a name that was on anyone’s radar over the last few weeks,” Rieckhoff said in a press release. “His branding background may prove helpful, because there are few organizations in America with a worse reputation with its customers than the VA right now. He’s been away from the military for quite a while, and will have to move quickly to show he is committed to and understands the post-9/11 generation of veterans."

news@stripes.com

UCLA officials propose diversity class requirement

LOS ANGELES — University of California, Los Angeles officials are proposing that most undergraduate students be required to take a class in racial cultural, gender or religious diversity in order to graduate.

The Los Angeles Times reported that this is the fourth effort to bring such a requirement to UCLA’s College of Letters and Science, which enrolls about 85 percent of undergraduates.

Such a requirement has existed at the Arts and Architecture school for the last six years and is at most UC campuses and many other universities. But the curriculum change has been repeatedly rejected in votes by the college’s faculty group.

Previous proposals have been met with questions about whether students were already overburdened with requirements, whether the university could afford extra classes, or if the classes improve ethnic relations or skew left politically. But UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said it’s important for students to have an explicit class that deals with multiple cultures in the United States living together.

Faculty leaders are preparing for another attempt to bring such a requirement to the college for students entering in fall 2015, said Jan Reiff, a UCLA history and statistics professor who is chair of the campuswide faculty Academic Senate. But this time it may be revised to include more community internships and more science courses, she said.

But UCLA anthropology professor Joseph Manson, who opposed a previous effort in 2012, questioned whether it’s appropriate to change the curriculum for nonacademic, or political, goals.

The UCLA College Republicans, a student group, said in a statement that it values diversity but believes the new proposal is “a guise by university leadership to push an otherwise unwanted and offensive political strategy.” They said there are more effective ways to promote tolerance and understanding among students, such as expanding free speech zones on campus.

According to last fall’s statistics, UCLA has nearly 25,300 U.S. undergraduates of which 39% are Asian American or Pacific Islander, 31 percent are white, 20 percent are Latino and 4 percent are black.

As UCLA debates such a requirement, the University of California, Berkeley is commemorating the 25th anniversary of its “American Cultures” requirement, which mandates all undergraduates take a least one of more than 300 semester classes exploring U.S. diversity.

Project will try to evaluate what college students learn

Nine states will participate in a project to determine how well college students are reaching certain educational goals, according to an announcement by the two groups leading the program.

The initiative was announced June 23 by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the initial year of the program.

A total of 68 institutions — both two-year and four-year colleges — will participate in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island and Utah. A list of the colleges is available on the SHEEOA website.

Participating colleges and universities will document how well students are achieving key learning outcomes, such as quantitative reasoning, written communication and critical thinking by assessing student work products using a set of common measuring tools, SHEEOA’s news release said.

Air Force Ground Combat Readiness Training Center opens at Fort Bliss

FORT BLISS---The Air Force has picked Fort Bliss to be the home of its new consolidated training center.

Last week, about 100 dignitaries from Fort Bliss and the Air Force attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Ground Combat Readiness Training Center, also known as Desert Defender, located on Staff Sgt. Sims Road near the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.

The Air Force has conducted training for its Security Forces, similar to the Army's Military Police, at Fort Bliss since 2008. What is new is the Air Force has consolidated five or six regional training centers into one location at Fort Bliss, said Brig. Gen. Allen J. Jamerson, director of Security Forces for the Air Force.

About 2,500 to 4,500 airmen will come through the center each year to get combat training and will take classes that typically last for about 20 days, officials said. The center has a staff of about 70 but that will eventually increase to about 180.

Fort Bliss went through an exhaustive process that looked at numerous factors and came out on top because of things like its training ranges and other facilities, Jamerson said.

"If you've been to Fort Bliss, you understand why this is the right place," Jamerson said.

The consolidated training center will also allow the Air Force to standardize its training and curriculum instead of having it spread over about a half-dozen locations, Jamerson said.

Maj. Tim Neel, commander of the Fort Bliss center, said by consolidating a handful of regional training facilities, it will save the Air Force money and produce more effective training.

The center will train Air Force Security Forces in combat skills, not law enforcement, said Col. Mike Kelly, commander of the Air Force Security Forces Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Air Force Base. They will learn how to defend air bases in combat zones or other potentially hostile areas, to be snipers, conduct convoys and other skills, Kelly said.

The center will also use a staff of instructors consisting of active-duty Air Force, Air National Guard and Reservist personnel, making it a model for the concept of "total force integration," which brings together the best elements of all three groups, said Maj. Ken Poindexter, deputy commander for the Fort Bliss training center.

The center creates a "one-stop shop" for training Security Forces airmen to defend air bases worldwide in potential combat zones or other austere operating locations and to perform additional combat-related duties, Poindexter said.

Hanging onto oil-rich Kirkuk may prove a challenge for Iraq’s Kurds

KIRKUK, Iraq — Piling into a pickup truck with their AK-47 assault rifles, the Kurdish militia fighters were eager to show off the series of checkpoints they’d set up to guard the approaches to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The Kurds had long coveted Kirkuk for both historical and economic reasons, and suddenly earlier this month it fell under their control when the Iraqi army collapsed and fled in the face of a surprise offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Now, with ISIL gunmen roaming unchecked just miles from city, the famed Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, has established a string of checkpoints and fortified positions intended to defend not only newly acquired Kirkuk, but also the approaches to the main Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulimaniya, which have remained more or less untouched by the horrible violence that has roiled the rest of Iraq for much of the past 11 years.

Gen. Ayoub Sa’id, the peshmerga commander in Kirkuk, who directs his forces from a former U.S. military base at the Kirkuk airport, is proud of his forces’ array. He even encouraged visiting journalists to drive south toward the ISIL front lines to inspect the peshmerga’s defenses.

But after five minutes of high-speed driving down the nearly deserted highway to visit these last lines of defense, the pickup screeched to a sudden stop and made an abrupt U-turn. There was no sign of the peshmerga, who despite their reputation as some of the best trained and most disciplined fighters in Iraq, had left their positions. The only thing standing between Kirkuk and the ISIL fighters, who control the nearby city of Tikrit and its outlying villages, was the pickup truck with its load of lightly armed fighters and a few journalists.

Confusion still reigns along the nebulous front line between the two sides. So far, ISIL and its tribal allies appear content to control Sunni Arab villages and towns and have yet to challenge the Kurds, whose mostly peaceful region backs up against the border with Iran and now spans from Iraq’s far north to Kirkuk. ISIL appears more focused on pushing toward Baghdad.

But Kirkuk, with its huge Sunni Arab population and oil wealth, is also an attractive target, and the front is tense, with near daily clashes between Kurds and ISIL as they compete for control of strategic villages and crossroads.

“Daash was down there and there was no checkpoint,” said one of the confused if slightly embarrassed fighters, using the common and disparaging term for ISIL. Just moments before, Gen. Sa’id had insisted the road was safe and had told the journalists they could visit the nonexistent checkpoint in their own car. Only reluctantly had he dispatched the armed escort after the journalists pleaded that it was unsafe.

The peshmerga has a sterling reputation for courage and discipline in battle and was a favorite ally of U.S. special forces during the U.S. occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011. But according to one military contractor, who did not want to be identified because he still works with the Kurdish government, the militia has limitations that the attempt to control Kirkuk has highlighted.

“Look, these guys are good,” he said in Irbil, the Kurdish capital, where his company consults for the military. “They’re not like Iraqis; they fight for a nation they believe in and have training, experience, equipment and a good dose of discipline you rarely see in the Middle East. But they’re best fighting at home in their mountains. And they’re at their best fighting around and protecting the Kurds.”

In Kirkuk, they face a different challenge. For one, the terrain is wide open and flat. For another, they are likely to face two enemies, ISIL and the central government. The peshmerga, the consultant says, “hate Arabs, whether Sunni guys from ISIL or Shiite guys from the government. They don’t see a huge difference between the two.”

The lack of coordination on the front lines didn’t surprise him.

“The peshmerga are Kurdish and the Kurds are a clannish people,” he explained. “So while they look and act like an army, you’ll find they coordinate best in small units of guys who all know each other and are even related. They don’t do well coordinating outside this cell structure in large numbers.”

Another Western observer who spent significant time with the peshmerga during the 2003 invasion was less subtle, asking not to be identified because he still works with the Kurds.

“They’ll run the first time those ISIL gun trucks come screaming up the highway,” he said. “They coordinate by cellphones. They hate fighting on flat lands, and ISIL is faster. They’d regroup once they hit the mountains in the Kurdish areas and hold tight there, but the only reason they have Kirkuk is that ISIL clearly doesn’t want to try for it now.”

A city of more than 1 million people once dominated by Kurds but ethnically roiled by an Arabization policy imposed by Saddam Hussein that forced out many Kurdish residents and replaced them with Arabs, Kirkuk poses a thorny issue for the peshmerga. Unlike in their home areas, where peshmerga fighters are viewed as military gods, much of the population of Kirkuk sees them as dangerous outsiders.

Since the beginning of ISIL’ offensive — which began with its capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, two weeks ago — the peshmerga has yet to engage in serious combat. Most Kurdish commanders expect that won’t last and that either ISIL or the furious central government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will launch an attack. Al-Maliki has all but accused the Kurds of treason for seizing Kirkuk and not confronting ISIL.

Kirkuk residents claim that law and order has completely broken down in areas of the city inhabited by Arabs or Kirkuk’s other major ethnic group, the Turkomen. The Kurds have left policing those areas to the handful of Iraqi policemen who didn’t flee their posts when the army abandoned Kirkuk.

“It’s anything goes,” according to a Turkomen resident named Timur, who asked that his last name not be used because he once worked with the American occupation and fears both the peshmerga because of his Turkish roots and ISIL for having worked with the Americans. “You can kill anyone on the street and nobody will say anything. Nobody will stop you. I carry a gun everywhere, and a bag with clothes and my passport so I can just drive away if it gets too bad. This place is not safe.”

Less than an hour after Timur spoke, a suicide bomber killed himself and two Iraqi police officers in the first suicide attack in a Kurdish-controlled area since the ISIL uprising began.

There are ominous signs of trouble. Roadside bombs planted by ISIL regularly detonate along the highway that leads to the heavily guarded airport where the Kurds are headquartered.

Still, the peshmerga are ready to fight to keep hold of Kirkuk. In the hills a few miles north of the city, a peshmerga unit has dug into the hillsides, creating bunkers to withstand mortar and small arms fire. Commanders there were eager to show they could protect the highway from a flanking attack. From the ridge line they control, they point out the ISIL front lines just six miles away. They are confident nestled into the hills the Kurds have called home for centuries.

“We control these villages along the river,” said the commanding officer in a friendly and candid briefing on the situation, only asking that his name and unit not be identified directly because the interview had not been approved by the Kurdish Defense Ministry. He pointed to a string of Kurdish and ethnic Turkomen Shiite Muslim villages that fear ISIL far more than the Kurds.

“But we can’t try and control the Sunnis around here,” he added, pointing to the Sunni heartland centered around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, just 20 miles away.

The commander has nothing good to say about ISIL, which he refers to by its derogatory Arabic acronym.

“Daash is crazy and they’re a mix of Iraqi, Syrians, Saudis, Chechens, Pakistani, all these insane people who think they are Muslims but are just stupid and crazy. They only worship killing, not God,” he said bitterly. “And all they can do is drive around and murder people. The only way they can hold a place is if they have local Sunni allies to take over while they go off and attack something else.”

But his harshest words are for Iraq’s central government. And he repeats the same pledge heard from every Kurd interviewed in the area: Kurdistan will never surrender Kirkuk.

“Iraq is finished,” he said. “Maliki is nothing. Baghdad is finished. Now there will only be a Shiite-stan, Sunni-stan and Kurdistan.”