Squaddies 'using drug masks'

Staffordshire Regiment soldiers are alleged to have been using army gas masks to get high on extra-strong cannabis, it has been claimed by a squaddie today.

The new craze, which is known as puff-puff-pass, involves troops using the airtight respirator kit as "bongs" to concentrate the drug. Squaddies put on the respirator and inhale powerful cannabis called skunk twice before handing it to the next man. The revelations have come from a soldier who is based at the regiment's base in Tidworth, Wiltshire.

The soldier, who does not wish to be named, said: "You get the most amazing hit in seconds because you inhale nothing but pure skunk."Squaddies hold a cannabis spliff on the end of a drinking tube fitted to the mask and inhale through the tube and then breathe out into the mask, filling it with smoke. The barracks drug sessions are alleged to have been going on while other members of the regiment are on tour in Iraq.

The whistleblower claimed it had been been going on for about six months with soldiers doing it in groups of four or five and about a dozen involved in it in total.

"The rule is two deep puffs, then you pass the mask to the next man. While it's going round, someone rolls up another spliff.

"The cannabis leaves a hell of a stink so we keep all the windows open. We wash out the mask afterwards to get rid of the smell but it can't do it much good."

He claimed NCOs had taken bribes to allow soldiers to pass regular drugs tests. "All the men have to urinate into a test tube for analysis. Once I gave the NCO £30 and he peed in the bottle for me," he claimed.

The soldier said every regiment had a hard core of drug users. Last February, 18 Staffords tested positive for drugs including cannabis, cocaine and heroin Ñ just months after returning from Iraq.

Two months ago another seven failed routine barracks drug tests.

All seven have been kicked out of the unit.

The Ministry of Defence has strenuously denied that NCOs carrying out drug tests would take bribes.

By John Corser