Cocaine use up among UK combat troops

AFGHANISTAN: The British army, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, is losing the equivalent resources of more than one battalion (500-600 soldiers) a year as a result of illegal drug use, researchers said yesterday.

This was more than the number of fatalities and serious casualties in both conflicts and may be a reflection of combat stress, the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit said.

Analysis of figures from the Ministry of Defence by the body, which was published in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute , found there had been a fourfold increase in soldiers testing positive for cocaine. It said figures showed positive tests for illegal substances in the British Army rose to 769 in 2006 from nearly 520 in 2003.

Prof Sheila Bird, a senior scientist at the unit, warned the trend could be on rise. "What is worrying from our study . . . is the sharp increase in the proportion of soldiers testing positive for cocaine, a sharper increase than in 16-24 year olds in society at large," she said in a statement.

An MOD spokesman rejected the assertion that drug use was rife.

He said positive detection over the past four years averaged 0.77 per cent compared with almost 10 per cent in other "civilian workplaces".

- (Reuters)

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times