FOI request reveals more than 80 Queensland-based ADF personnel sacked after positive drug tests
A freedom-of-information request has revealed dozens of Queensland-based Australian Defence Force personnel have been sacked in the past two-and-a-half financial years, leading to calls for better support for both serving soldiers and veterans.
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More than 80 Queensland-based Defence personnel have been sacked in the last two and half financial years after testing positive for illicit drugs, with use of MDMA and cocaine the most common.
Data obtained via freedom-of-information revealed 106 Queensland-based ADF personnel — all but ten of whom were within the Army — had tested positive for illicit drugs between July 2019 and November 16, 2021.
Of those that had tested positive 82 were terminated, while 7 others are waiting on a decision on their future with the ADF.
MDMA and cocaine topped the list of detected drugs, with some Queensland Defence personnel testing positive for multiple different substances at once.
This included an ADF member that was sacked at the beginning of 2021 after testing positive simultaneously for MDMA, MDA, cocaine, and marijuana.
But the number of Queensland-based personnel testing positive to drugs equated to less than a per cent of all tests conducted.
Over the last two financial years 106 personnel tested positive from about 12,000 tests.
By comparison, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report from 2019 revealed 16.4 per cent of the Australian population had used an illicit drug in the last 12 months.
The ADF famously has a zero-tolerance approach to drug use
Defence has previously said that testing of personnel can occur “anywhere and at any time” and the decision on whether to give those who come back positive the sack is determined on a “case-by-case basis”.
Herbert MP and veteran Phillip Thompson, who is based in the garrison city of Townsville, said drug use within the military had fallen since his days in Defence, with education on illicit substances and a “new generation” of soldiers shifting the tide.
He said drug use was already low when he was a serving member.
Mr Thompson, who has spoken at length of his struggles with PTSD after leaving the Army, said a lot of veterans he knew had “fallen on bad times and taken drugs they shouldn’t have” as a coping mechanism for their mental illness.
“They’ve (since) got the help they’ve needed to bounce back and live their best lives,” he said.
The Royal Commission into veteran suicide will examine drug and alcohol abuse by veterans as factors.
During recent hearings in Brisbane, a Royal Australian Navy sailor spoke of how drugs had been “floating around” alongside copious amounts of alcohol in port as a way for him and his crewmates to cope with the horrors witnessed while deployed as part of Operation Sovereign Borders.
QUEENSLAND ADF MEMBERS TERMINATED FOR ILLICIT DRUG USE
2019/20: 52
2020/21: 36
2021/22 (up to November 16): 18
QUEENSLAND ADF MEMBERS TESTING POSITIVE FOR DRUGS BY BRANCH OF MILITARY BETWEEN MID-2019 AND NOVEMBER 2021:
Army: 96
Navy: 5
Air Force: 5
TOP ILLICIT SUBSTANCES DETECTED:
Cocaine
MDMA
Opiates
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Originally published as FOI request reveals more than 80 Queensland-based ADF personnel sacked after positive drug tests
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