Vietnam War Vet Drug Abuse Panic
Until 1969, marijuana was the only drug widely available to American troops in Vietnam. Then heroin showed up. It was cheap, and of such a high level of purity that servicemen could get high smoking heroin mixed with tobacco. By 1971, almost half of US Army enlistees in Vietnam had tried heroin, and of those, about half exhibited signs of addiction. In May, 1971, a congressional fact-finding mission uncovered disturbing facts: 15% of American servicemen in Vietnam were heroin addicts.
Even more military personnel in theater were recreational users of heroin, marijuana, and other drugs. The addiction epidemic spread from Vietnam to other US military installations around the world. The American garrison in West Germany was particularly hard hit. The armed forces first turned to a mixture of military discipline and penalties, combined with limited amnesties. That approach was a dismal failure: heroin use skyrocketed. The idea that so many servicemen were addicted to heroin led to a moral panic back home and horrified the American public.
