MP WAKES UP TO ARMED FORCES DRUG PROBLEM THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS CONCEALED

Member of Parliament David Hamilton has called for called for greater clarity over statistics relating to drug abuse in the British Armed Forces.

A Scottish Labour MP (David Hamilton - Midlothian constituency) has called for called for greater clarity over statistics relating to drug abuse in the British Armed Forces. The move comes following revelations that 601 soldiers, including 101 in Scottish Regiments, failed drug tests in 2007.

The Celtic League welcome Mr Hamilton's belated interest in this matter. He is obviously unaware that this is an issue which interest groups such as the Celtic League have campaigned on for many years.

The issue of drug taking in the Armed Forces generally and the impact of dumping drug-dependent ex squaddies back into the community is a hidden scandal that the Celtic League has repeatedly highlighted. Just twelve months ago we expressed great unease about the Armed Forces monitoring of drug abuse and voiced scepticism at the manner in which statistics were collated and published.

In March 2007 we pointed out that the MoD had reduced (by 20% - 25%) the level of random sampling as the problem has grown progressively worse. A step which we said was hardly conducive to tackling a problem which the MOD "regarded as particularly serious".

See attached link for Celtic League analysis of Joint Services drug tests data for 2000 - 2005:

(voir le site)

We continued to campaign on the issue and eventually the Ministry of Defence did concede (January 2008) in a response to our concerns that statistics appeared to be gerrymandered:

"As a result of your letter, we will investigate publishing the actual number of tests undertaken on our website in addition to the number of individuals tested".

The Celtic League hope therefore that in addition to raising the issue with the MOD David Hamilton MP will also question the Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The facts are that whilst the UK Labour government has been responsible for overseeing Britain's Armed Forces the drugs problem has risen.

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J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League 02/12/08

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