Drugs in the Vietnam War

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

During the Vietnam war, US commanders grew increasingly concerned about the widespread use of drugs by US troops in Vietnam. Initially the focus was on marijuana. But in the early 1970s, reports began to emerge of the large scale use of heroin by US military personnel. The drug had became widely available in South Vietnam. Alex Last spoke to Dr Richard Ratner, then a psychiatrist in the US army in Vietnam, about his memories of treating soldiers suffering from heroin addiction.

Photo: Two soldiers in Vietnam exchange vials of heroin, July 1971 (Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.9	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service
0:37.9	with me Alex Last as we present firsthand accounts of events that
0:42.2	shaped our world.
0:43.9	And today we go back to the start of the 1970s when the US military became extremely
0:48.7	worried about the scale of drug use by US troops serving in the war in Vietnam.
1:00.5	Is it very easy for men to become hooked on drugs here in Vietnam?
1:04.0	It certainly is.
1:06.0	The problem we have in the armed forces is very serious.
1:08.0	All the studies that have come out of Vietnam
1:11.0	shows 35% to 80% of the soldiers in Vietnam using trucks.
1:17.0	In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the US military was worried.
1:22.0	Not just about the course of the war in Vietnam, but
1:25.1	increasingly by the widespread use of drugs by US troops in the country.
1:30.7	At the time I was there, the illicit drug problem was marijuana because it was fairly easy to get over there and cheap.
	...

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