Trouble continues for the leadership of the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC) as another scandal rocks the community. A declassified report revealed that several Navy SEALs were caught abusing drug substances to include cocaine and ecstasy.

The six SEAL operators were assigned to SEAL Team 10, and according to a report obtained by the Navy Times, four of them were kicked out of the Navy over their drug abuse, one of them committed suicide, and another lost his SEAL Trident and also kicked out of the Teams. NSWC, however, appears that it wanted to avoid a scandal for the operators weren’t put through a court-martial.

Naval Special Warfare Group 2, under which SEAL Team 10 falls under, conducted an internal report in the wake of the drug busts. The report is adamant that drug testing should always be a priority even overseas. “On deployment, no location should be treated as too remote for testing,” the report states. “No distance or cost should, by its inconvenience, implicitly sanction unlawful drug use or insulate service members from rigid adherence to Navy standards.”

According to numerous SEAL operators, the pre-existing test was rife with deficiencies and loopholes. SEALs told the NCIS investigators that it was fairly easy to substitute urine from other clean sources and thus cheat the test. They even went to admit that they often stashed bottles filled with ‘clean’ urine in case their leadership made a surprise drug test.

One SEAL said that the test was “so relaxed that once an individual saw his name on the urinalysis list, he commonly asked others to urinate for him into a spare bottle, and then set aside the urine in that bottle for later submission as a sample.”

The internal report, moreover, echoes these revelations. The test, it states, “suffered from serious deficiencies, which did not maintain accountability for substance abuse and adversely affected readiness.

Many would argue that using drugs for recreational reasons in privacy and on one’s spare time isn’t a big deal. But when we are talking about warfighters who are entrusted with the nation’s security, and who admitted to using drugs even during training exercises, thus raising the possibility that they used drugs on actual operations, then it is a big deal. Navy SEALs at a minimum hold a SECRET security clearance.