The Guardian reports a rise in drug use by members of the British Army it comes after the current Defence Minister relaxed zero tolerance policies of his predecessor;
It’s not however the first time that ‘the Brits’ have eased drug tolerance in the services to try to bolster flagging recruitment targets. Celtic League Military Monitoring (CLMM) reported on this two decades ago in April 200 we pointed out in a press statement that:
“The British Ministry of Defence is planning to relax its rules on drug taking to ease a shortage of recruits, but is progressing the issue sensitively. Over recent months we have highlighted a number of expulsions from the Armed Forces when troops have tested positive in random checks. Numbers of troops testing positive have grown in recent years In the first ten months of last year 580 were discharged whilst in 1999 the total was 485. This year multiple discharges have occurred in a number of key regiments. Eighteen soldiers from the Kings Regt. were kicked out in February and Fifteen members of the Light Dragoons went in the previous month. More lenient treatment is meted out to Officers with a second lieutenant in the RAMC allowed to “resign his commission”.
Earlier CLMM first highlighted the issue in the mid 1980s when about 20 personnel were dismissed at the main RAF helicopter base at Odiham others were disciplined. The MOD subsequently were forced to confirm the facts nine years later 1994 when a confidential report on the scandal was leaked.
Celtic League raised the issue with the MOD and HQ British Army as British troops were active in Ulster at the time in a ‘combat role’.
Image; ‘High’ in every sense of the word!
Bernard Moffatt
Celtic League Military Monitoring (24th August 2020)
