# During the Vietnam War use a shotgun barrel to smoke marijuana while stationed at a base camp 50 miles from Saigon in November 1970. The term "shotgunning"came from this act.

Drugs were rampant during the Vietnam War and when I joined it seemed like everyone got high. I got high with a S/Sgt, a Gunny and a 2nd LT between 79'and 80'. If you got caught most you got was 2 weeks restriction and made to plant ice plants around the barracks, and I never got caught lol.

Anyway in 1981 with the crash on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS\_Nimitz#1980s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz#1980s) the fun times came to a screeching halt!

"Autopsies showed later that the pilot had had six times the normal level of the sedating antihistamine medication [brompheniramine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompheniramine) in his blood.[^(\[14\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz#cite_note-14) Despite having no connection to the accident, the media focused on the autopsy results of several members of the *Nimitz*'s enlisted flight deck crew who were killed and who [tested positive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_test) for [marijuana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana). An article by Robert Reinhold in the 17 June 1981 edition of [*The New York Times*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times) reported, "Experts at the National Institute on Drug Abuse say that it would probably be impossible to establish conclusively that any of the *Nimitz* crew had been smoking marijuana on the night of the crash because the test does not directly detect the component of marijuana smoke that acts on the brain. Because the metabolites may persist in the blood for many days, the test may detect marijuana that was used many days earlier, long after the effects have worn off".[^(\[15\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz#cite_note-15) As a result, President [Ronald Reagan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan) instituted a ["Zero Tolerance" drug policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Tolerance_drug_policy) across all of the U.S. armed services, which started the mandatory drug testing of all U.S. military personnel.[^(\[16\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz#cite_note-16)^(")



Uncle Sam's Marijuana Club circa 1968 - 1981