18 British soldiers a week test positive for drug use

Eighteen British servicemen a week are testing positive for drug use, according to new figures from the Ministry of Defence.

The use of cocaine has trebled since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, and the drug is now found in the majority of those soldiers who fail drugs tests.

More than 1,500 forces personnel (almost 1 per cent of soldiers in the Army) have tested positive for drugs since the beginning of 2006 – 80 per cent of whom were using class A drugs – according to statistics from the MoD's random drug testing programme.

The number of British Army personnel testing positive for drugs rose from 518 in 2003 to 769 in 2006 – a 48 per cent increase. Cocaine accounted for 423 failed tests, far ahead of cannabis (221) and Ecstasy (95).

Although the MoD is quick to claim that drug taking is not widespread, up to 90 per cent of recruits have used drugs before enlisting, and the increased affordability of cocaine has brought it well within the price range of soldiers.

But soldiers who take drugs are often using them to self-medicate and escape an uncomfortable and dangerous reality where death is ever present, say addiction experts.

"Soldiers are in a particularly difficult situation – we are talking about people going out to fight wars, and we have to be sympathetic to the immense stress that they are under," says Robert Lefever, director of Promis, one of Britain's longest-established addiction treatment centres.

"There will be some who take drugs as a way of dealing with the pressures that they face, not simply to get high. Soldiers are having a bad time at the moment and deserve more support and understanding."

According to the MoD, since the start of 2006 the Army has had 1,397 positive drug tests and the highest percentage of hard drugs (80 per cent), while only 88 Navy personnel have tested positive (76 per cent for class A drugs) and only 27 Royal Air Force personnel (67 per cent for class A drugs).

The tests are carried out while soldiers are back at base in the UK, Cyprus or Germany, and a failed test usually means instant dismissal from the forces.

An MoD spokesman said that drug use in the armed services was far lower than in the population at large, with rates of service personnel testing positive for drugs at 0.7 per cent compared with more than 5 per cent in civilian workplace drug-testing programmes.

But Professor Neil McKeganey from Glasgow University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research, says that the stress of fighting will lead to escalating levels of drug use. "The much greater proportion of military personnel now who will have had recent conflict experience or be en route into those situations will almost certainly mean there are increased levels of drug use," he says. "It has historically been a way in which serving personnel have sought to cope with the stress and strains of such conflict situations."

The Tory MP and former soldier Patrick Mercer said the figures suggested the forces were reflecting trends in drug use within society at large. "What the latest figures mean is that the Army is reflecting what is going on in the rest of the community," he said. "But you cannot get away from the fact that hard drug use is more prevalent because of the sort of experiences that soldiers are having in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They are facing very difficult situations and then they are being given less and less time for 'decompression' before they have to go back into theatre. I commanded a regiment eight years ago, and we had our share of drug problems. But in all that time we had about 25 positive tests for soft drugs and only one or two for class A substances."

Further reading: 'Vietnam: A History' by Stanley Karnow (Penguin, £10)