Armed Forces: Drugs
(asked on 25th February 2019) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many drug tests have been administered in the (a) Royal Air Force and (b) Royal Navy in each of the last five years.
The numbers provided in the table below relate to the number of drug tests administered each calendar year.
Year | Number of drug tests administered each year in | |
Royal Air Force | Royal Navy* | |
2014 | 12,618 | 13,082 |
2015 | 12,450 | 13,556 |
2016 | 14,061 | 12,846 |
2017 | 20,662 | 15,689 |
2018 | 27,199 | 24,032 |
*These figures are for the Naval Service which consists of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines.
Although the selection of personnel for compulsory drug tests is primarily random, a small percentage of personnel are repeatedly selected for testing. Consequently, the number of personnel tested each year does not directly correlate to the number of drug tests completed.