THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 6, 2005
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 1, 1972
• Content Type: PREL

Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
(NOTE TO PRESS--The following excerpt from the testimony of
General Lewis Walt (USMC-.Ret.) on August 14, 1972, was taken
in the late afternoon when most of the press had left the
hearing room. Because of its subject matter, here is a
transcript of that portion of the testimony.)
THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC IN VIETNAM
Excerpt of testimony of Gen. Lewis Walt before
the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
August 14, 1972
GENERAL WALT. In Vietnam the prime focus of our
investigation was on the heroin epidemic among the American
armed forces. We wanted to find out as much as we could
about the epidemic itself and about the effectiveness of the
counter-measure which had been instituted in the fields of
detection, rehabilitation, and education.
The epidemic hit in the month of June, immediately
after our Cambodian incursion had devastated the enemy
sanctuaries and supply caches in the Parrot's Beak area.
Almost overnight heroin of remarkable purity -- 94 to 97
percent -- became available in unlimited quantities to the
American armed forces in the greater Saigon area, initially
at a price of a dollar a vial, later at an average price of
$2. Within two months, the epidemic had spread to cover
virtually the entire country.
Within a few months time, death from heroin overdose
climbed from 2 a month to almost 70 a month. There are
varying estimates as to what percentage of our forces became
involved in the epidemic, but certainly it ran into many,
many thousands. Naturally, it varied from unit to unit.
Major Jerome Char, psychiatrist for the 101st Airborne
Division located in I Corps, estimated in a statement to the
Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee that 40 to 50
percent of the men in his division had either experimented
with or were hooked on hard drugs. Although the overall
official estimate was substantially lower, it was clear that
we were confronted with a situation of catastrophic dimen-
sions.
The heroin was sold in the streets in plastic vials
of similar manufacture, and all of the heroin was of closely
related appearance and purity. At wholesale level, all of
it was uniformly packaged in sealed 135 gram plastic bags.
It is my information that the vials which first
appeared on the streets of Saigon contained .15 grams, which
is about eight times as much heroin as a New York addict
takes in one injection. At a very early date, however, it
began to appear on the streets in quarter gram or half gram
vials. In this country, a half gram of heroin would be
enough for 25 injections.
There is substantial agreement that the operation
appeared to be highly coordinated and centralized. Some
people or some group must have established virtually
simultaneous contact with scores of Chinese ethnic entre-
preneurs throughout South Vietnam and prepared them to
receive large quantities of heroin--for distribution through
the armies of street urchins, both boys and girls, who had
up until then been merchandising marijuana for the entre-
preneurs.
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
 Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
Apart from the fact that this kind of explosive nation-
wide launching of a heroin sales promotion campaign is simply
not in the pattern of criminal conduct, the pattern I have
detailed here raises two very basic questions.
If the operation was organized by some Asian Mafia, it
would be natural for the profit motive to predominate. Why,
if the operation was criminal in origin, did they sell stuff
that was 94 to 97 percent pure, when people manage to get
high in New York on 10 percent heroin? Why did they sell it
for $1 or $2 a vial on the street, when no G.I. who was hooked
or who wanted to experiment with heroin would have batted an
eyelash at paying $5? It makes even less sense when one
considers that in April-May, just before the epidemic broke,
similar vials of opium of inferior purity were being sold
for $10 each.
The economics of the heroin epidemic call for very
careful scrutiny. While estimates of the rate of profit at
different stages of the market vary considerably, it would
appear that the street urchins, in order to sell the vials
for a dollar, were able to purchase them for 50~. Similarly,
the wholesaler, in order to sell them for 50:, were able to
purchase the heroin content for approximately 254. At the
time the heroin epidemic broke, a kilogram of heroin in
Bangkok was selling for roughly $1,300 a kilo, or $1.30 a
gram. A half-grant, therefore, cost the master entrepreneur
65, while a quarter-gram cost 320. Whoever was selling
heroin to the ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Vietnam at a
price which permitted street sales at a dollar per vial was
taking a heck of a beating financially. They probably began
to make some money, however, at the point where the street
price of a vial went up to $2.
All of this just doesn't make sense from the standpoint
of criminal. economics.
It does make sense, however, if the operation was
political in origin, because then it would only be natural
for the organizers to want to hook as many G.I.'s as possible,
as hard as possible, and as fast as possible - and to hook
them, moreover, on a habit so expensive that they would have
to engage in far more crime than the ordinary addict to feed
the habit once they returned home.
The Communists had so much to gain from such an opera-
tion. First of all, it was clearly bound to have an immediate
demoralizing effect on our forces in Vietnam. Second, it was
bound to have a demoralizing, long-term impact on American
society. Third, and perhaps most important in terms of the
Vietnam war, it was bound to provide grist for the mill of the
"Let's-get-out-of-southeast Asia-immediately" propaganda. At
the height of the heroin epidemic the situation was so bad
that many parents who had previously backed the President's
policy joined the clamor to get out of Vietnam - fearful that
if we stayed there much longer all our American boys would
return drug addicts.
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
 Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
All of this so far is deductive. Hard evidence is
difficult to come by. In Saigon, the MACV officer who briefed
us told us that they had thus far found no evidence tying
Hanoi or the VC to the epidemic. On this point, I would like
to quote the commentary of a senior general concerned with
the drug problem in Vietnam: "How the hell do you get hard
proof of the V.C.'s movement of several hundred pounds of
heroin into Vietnam, when for years we suspected, but could
not prove, that they were moving thousands of tons of military
supplies through the port Sihanoukville?"
Had the V.C. decided to organize the heroin epidemic
which hit our forces in Vietnam in the summer of 1970, it
stands to reason that they would not have had V.C. vendors
in the streets; this they left to the street urchins and the
mama sans. Nor would they have been involved with traffickers
at the next level up; this they left to the ethnic Chinese
entrepreneurs who are traditionally willing to lend themselves
to shady undertakings which promise a profit. If they played
any role at all, it would have been far, far back, on the
other side of the Cambodian or Laotian frontier, operating
through a handful of principals who could not clearly be
tagged as Viet-Cong.
But the absence of evidence is not absolute: There are
some items of definite evidentiary value.
We had occasion to examine the reports of interrogations
with 3 different VC defectors who claimed to have knowledge
relating to large-scale opium cultivation in North Vietnam
and, in one case, of Vietcong involvement in the heroin epidemic.
One defector, who came over on August 25, 1971, said
that while he was attending the COSVN Military-Political School
in May of 1970, he had participated in some frank discussions
on the North Vietnamese use of drugs as a direct means of
undermining the morale and efficiency of U.S. forces. COSVN,
I should point out, stands for the Central Office of South
Vietnam. This is the secret Communist Headquarters which has
been masterminding the entire war in South Vietnam.
The defector said, among other things, that North
Vietnamese combat reconnaisance activities were often undetected
because security forces at defense installations were visually
impaired by the use of drugs. While he had no direct knowledge
of how the drugs were distributed in South Vietnam, the inter-
rogator, in a summary comment, said that the defector was
cooperative and appeared sincere throughout the interrogation,
and that control questions revealed no attempt to deceive the
interrogator.
The two other ralliers, one of them a graduate of the
advanced cadre training school in Yen Bai province, North
Vietnam, claimed to have seen large-scale opium cultivation
in some of the northern provinces of North Vietnam.
All the senior Vietnamese officers with whom I discussed
the matter are convinced that the heroin epidemic was
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
 Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
essentially political rather than criminal in origin. They
are convinced, in short, that the Communists were behind it.
This conviction is shared by a number of American officers
of general rank who have been concerned with the drug problem.
In travelling around the world, I also encountered a number
of senior western officials who follow the world drug situation
closely and who told me confidentially that they were convinced
from the circumstances of the Vietnam epidemic that the
Communists were behind it.
We were also favorably impressed by the concrete
evidence of progress made by the government of Vietnam over
the past year in developing its interdiction and law enforce-
ment capabilities.
Under the French Administration, the production and
sale of opium was a government monopoly operated by the
Directorate General of Customs and Excise, and opium dens
were legally operated under state license. One of the first
steps of the Thieu government when South Vietnam became in-
dependent was to illegalize all traffic in opium and close
down the dens. While some of the old-timers continued to
smoke opium illegally, the problem in recent years has been
limited to an estimated 50,000 addicts -- a very small number
by Asian standards. Because the problem did not appear to
be of pressing importance on their own scale of priorities,
the South Vietnamese Government had not developed any special
narcotics apparatus at the time the heroin epidemic struck
in June of 1970. They were caught unprepared -- just as we
were.
As I have pointed out previously, it took a number of
months before we realized the magnitude of the epidemic and
began to gear up to cope with it; and it took another few
months before our own program began to move into high gear.
The Vietnamese did not lag very far behind us.
On May 18, 1971, by virtue of a Presidential decree, an
Interministerial Committee was created under the Ministry of
Justice, encharged with the responsibility of stopping the
traffic in narcotics.
In the same month, the government launched a national
anti-drug campaign under the code name of "Vi-Dan", or "For
the People", combining a public education program with a
stepped-up enforcement campaign.
In Saigon, I met with Admiral Chung Tan Cang, Special
Assistant to the Prime Minister for the Eradication of Social.
Evils, and Colonel Cao Van Khanh, Director General of Customs.
I must say that I was impressed with their dedication and
record of accomplishment over the past 18 months, especially
when you consider how little they hadto operate with in
early 1971. A few figures will help to underscore the progress
they have achieved.
In 1969, they seized 109 lbs. of opium. In 1971 they
seized 1073 lbs. of opium.
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
 Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
In 1969, they seized 10 lbs. of heroin. In 1971, the
seizures totalled 271 lbs.
In 1969, they seized 4,712 lbs. of marijuana. In 1971
seizures totalled 18,781 lbs.
In 1969, they made 2,911 drug arrests. In 1971, they
made 6,474.
There is reason for hoping that the performance of the
Vietnamese Police and Customs will continue to improve over
the coming period.
With the help of the U.S. Customs Advisory Team, a
small unit of Customs Intelligence officers has just been
trained and dispatched to some of the border provinces where
narcotic smuggling has been going on.
To deal with the problem of military smuggling, the
Government is planning to set up a Military Customs Corps,
whose function it will be to inspect and control all military
men, military vehicles and warships coming from abroad.
One of the questions we asked our BNDD people was whether
they could trust their South Vietnamese counterparts with
narcotic intelligence, and whether they got action when they
provided them with such intelligence. They replied that not
only did they get affirmative action when they passed on in-
formation to the Vietnamese Police or Customs, but that the
Vietnamese Police would frequently take a small case and
develop it into a much bigger case. They wouldn't walk with
it--they would run with it.
We also asked about the question of corruption. They
replied that corruption does exist at lower and middle levels,
but that they have so far found no conclusive proof pointing
to the involvement of top level military or government
officials. There was one general whom they ran a very careful
but discreet check on because there was reason to suspect him.
They found that he was involved in some other hanky-panky--
but not in narcotics.
They also told we that President Thieu has given his
categorical assurance that if the American narcotics or
intelligence community developed hard information, about any
senior government official or military officer, he would take
immediate action against them, no matter how high their rank.
One final observation. The Government of Vietnam has
taken the stand that the heroin epidemic was a Communist
operation. Under these circumstances, a Vietnamese officer
or government official would stamp himself as the worst kind
of traitor in the eyes of his countrymen, if he were caught
participating in the drug traffic. And this is a very
powerful form of dis-incentive.
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
 STAT Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8
Approved For Release 2005/06/09 : CIA-RDP74B00415R000400020004-8