DRUG CULTURE OF DISGRACED NZ SOLDIERS

A group of soldiers sent home from Afghanistan in disgrace for smoking
hashish used a codeword to summon members to regular drug sessions,
held in an army workshop where two bongs were stashed.

Internal New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) reports, released last week
under the Official Information Act, reveal the drug use among the six
soldiers was "not an isolated incident or a 'one-off' affair".

Junior members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) took part
in at least six drug sessions, held in an electrical workshop at Kiwi
base in Bamiyan and at forward operating base Romero, seven hours'
drive away, where one was suspected of being stoned when reporting
late for sentry duty.

A soldier at Romero was also described by personnel as being
"plastered". Afghanistan is a dry mission, with servicemen forbidden
from drinking alcohol.

The reports, released to the Sunday Star-Times after eight months of
stalling by NZDF, describe how the soldiers used a flat soldering iron
to smoke "spots" of the class-B drug in the workshop, beginning within
a month of starting the deployment. Cut-off plastic drink bottles,
used to funnel the hashish smoke, were found "well-concealed" in the
workshop.

The "Bamiyan Six" were sent home under military police guard in March
last year, following an investigation triggered when one of the
soldiers was overheard discussing his drug use.

Defence Force spokesman Commander Shaun Fogarty said that despite five
of the six admitting to investigating officers they had smoked the
drug, all charges against them were later dismissed because of
procedural errors in the investigation.

"Our investigators didn't advise them of their rights and what have
you; because that wasn't administered ... the evidence taken was
inadmissible."

No disciplinary action was taken against the soldiers, all but one of
whom is still in the military, other than censures on their employment
records.

The reports suggested drug use could be a wider problem among soldiers
in Afghanistan, one of the world's major drug-producing nations, awash
with cheap and easily accessible opium and hashish. One of the accused
said he had heard drugs had been consumed at the base for the previous
three rotations, and one of the investigators reported a "nagging
worry" that if an Afghan employee at the base had provided the drugs,
as two of the accused suggested, "then it will continue to be a problem".

But Fogarty said there had been no repeat of the incident and he
believed the Defence Force was on top of the issue. "To put it in
perspective, we've had 1800 staff go through the PRT in six years, and
we've had six bad eggs in this case."

At home, military police have arrested at least six NZDF personnel for
drug offences since 2005, in Auckland, Linton and Burnham. Ad Feedback

Fogarty said improvements had been made to the military justice system
since the incident, with all officers trained in conducting
investigations. The Defence Force was also now able to implement
random drug tests in the field. The reports showed Bamiyan base had no
pottles for urine analysis when investigators sought to drug-test the
suspects at the time of the incident.

Fogarty said investigators had found no clear evidence the drugs had
been brought on to the base by an Afghan employee, or that drugs had
been consumed on base during previous deployments. "It's very
difficult to investigate, anyway."