In the history of police disability cases, former Suffolk narcotics officers James Kuhn and Raymond Gutowski apparently hold the distinction for the most unusual disability. Veteran state pension officials say they don't know of any similar cases.

Their disability? Cocaine addiction, plus the stress of being investigated. And although both men say they kicked their cocaine habits years ago - a claim supported by medical files examined by Newsday - their cases will never be re-evaluated. Disability pensions are granted only for permanent disabilities, so the system has no provisions for stopping payments to pensioners whose disabilities clear up.

During the early 1980s, Kuhn and Gutowski were the stars of the narcotics squad, working undercover and making dozens of busts. They say they started using cocaine to enhance their credibility among drug dealers, a violation of department policy, and got hooked. Then their addiction drove them to steal cocaine confiscated as evidence, they said.

Both were acquitted of drug charges in a criminal trial, and jurors said they believed the officers' defense: that their cocaine use started on the job and that their superiors ignored signs of their addiction and just kept pressing them to make more cases. Gutowski said in an interview that his cocaine use was so well known in the narcotics squad that other officers nicknamed him Buzz, a reference to his mental state.

Then Kuhn was convicted on drug charges in a departmental trial in 1987 and fired. To avoid the expense of a second trial, the department signed an agreement with Gutowski. He agreed to resign, and the department stipulated that his cocaine use "arose out of and was incurred during" his police work.

That legalese was all the lawyers needed - before long, both former narcotics officers had their disability pensions. Gutowski's is $23,284; Kuhn's, $17,580. Both also get monthly Social Security disability checks; the amount isn't public.

Suffolk police officials said they were surprised that Kuhn and Gutowski had been able to use the agreement to get disability pensions. But Gutowski's lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, said department officials knew all along that the agreement would be used in seeking the pensions. "I know that was discussed during the negotiations," he said.

Kuhn and Gutowski said in interviews that they don't feel as if they beat the system. Both said they are unemployed and still haunted by nightmares, depression and guilt. They talked of medications and therapy and wishing they were still policemen.

Gutowski, 44, who lives a reclusive life in rural Pennsylvania, said: "I pray to God that I'd be like I was when I was younger, but it just doesn't happen." Kuhn, also 44, said he wishes daily that he never left the Fifth Precinct in Patchogue, where he was happy. "You think you're getting a promotion, going to narcotics, and when the smoke clears you're just a skeleton of what you were."

Deputy State Comptroller John McManaman said the county's stipulation gave the state little choice but to approve the pensions. With the county acknowledging in an official document that their cocaine use was job-related, McManaman said, the state had no legal basis to deny the applications.

"The point is, the county has to be responsible for its actions in signing agreements," he said.