Written question asked by Andrew Griffiths (Conservative) on Friday, 16 January 2015, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 21 January 2015 (named day). A holding answer was provided on Wednesday, 21 January 2015. A substantive answer was provided by Anna Soubry (Conservative) on Monday, 23 February 2015 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.
Armed Forces: Drugs
- Question
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people serving in the (a) Royal Navy, (b) Royal Marines, (c) Royal Air Force and (d) Army were convicted of (i) possession of and (ii) supplying illegal drugs in each of the last five years.
- Answer
-
Drug use is unacceptable in the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence has a policy of Compulsory Drug Testing which seeks to reinforce that message. Providing a positive result, indicating the presence of illegal drugs, will almost certainly result in an administrative discharge. Positive rates in the Armed Forces over the last few years average less than 0.5%, which is significantly lower than the latest British Crime survey (2013/14) which reports one in 11 (8.8%) of adults aged 16 to 59 have taken an illegal drug in the last year.
The following tables provide information on the number of convictions in the Military Court Service in each requested year. Numbers provided for the category of ‘possession’ include convictions by a Commanding Officer at a Summary Hearing; offences relating to the supply of illegal drugs cannot be dealt with at Summary Hearing level.
Convictions for possession of drugs
Service
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Navy
-
-
-
-
-
Army
10
10
10
-
-
RAF
-
-
-
-
-
Convictions for supplying illegal drugs
Service
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Army
-
-
-
-
-
‘-’ Five or less. Note: Figures have been rounded to 10. There were no relevant convictions in either category among Royal Marines personnel and also no convictions for supplying illegal drugs among Navy and RAF personnel.
Secondary information
- Type
- Written question
- Reference
- 221064
- Session
- 2014-15
- Subjects
- Armed forces Drugs Misuse
- Contains statistics
- Yes
- Link
- View this Written question on www.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2015-05-22 02:39:32 +0100
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- http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/commons/2014-15/221064
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