The Vietcong's secret weapon: Marijuana

Title

Creator

Gonzalez, Arturo F. Jr.,

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XXI (No. 4) April 1969

Year

1969

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Cigarettes and cigars have been effective in the Vietnam war

Fulltext

■ Cigarettes and cigars have been effective in the Vietnam war. THE VIETCONG'S SECRET WEAPON: MARIJUANA While the Paris peace talks drone on, and the thunder of artillery and ma chine gun fire trickles down to a desultory non-and-then sniper’s shot or quick fire fight, the Vietcong is stag ing a new and subtle attack on the American fighting man. The VC’s secret weapon: Cannabis sattva. More com monly known as marijuana. “This is the first war in which the Army has been more concerned with mari juana than with V. D.,” says psychiatrist Dr. John A. Tal bott, who just returned to the U. S. after a year in South Vietnam with the Army Medical Corps. He reports an increasingly high incidence of psychotic reactions among servicemen after smoking Vietnamese marijuana — probably be cause of opiate additives present in the Vietnamese product. The Pentagon is seriously alarmed not only because of the psychological consequen ces but also because they know that money spent on the drug is being tunneled right back into the hands of the Vietcong. Says U. S. Navy Rear Ad miral James Kelly flatly, “Our commanders have evi dence that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese have large stocks of the drug in the vicinity of our troops in an effort to subvert them.” The mere mention of con xa (Vietnamese jargon for marijuana) brings an instant look of recognition from Vietnamese taxi drivers, sidewalk vendors and even children playing in the streets. Usually, the mari juana is sold in cigarette form, already rolled, in cel Apbil 1969 23 lophane packets ot 1U. lbe cost is dirt cheap — ranging from §1.00 to §2.50. In Saigon, packets are purchased openly on any cigarette stand on the Tu Do — the city's main street in the heart of the downtown area. Da Nang-based servicemen pick up their junk at China Beach near the USO. At Cam Ranh Bay, the site of a major U. S. logistics sup ply area, almost every bar in the village is selling mari juana for the asking. At Chau Doc, not far from the Cambodian border, four ounces of marijuana sells for about §4.25 while a kilogram can be purchased for just under §34. The GI is exposed to ma rijuana from the very mo ment he lands at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut airfield. Lit tle Vietnamese beer stands set up in the rear of the base fill all orders. Sold in what looks like an ordinary pack of regular American cigarettes, the marijuana has been neatly packed into what once were American brand packs. Only a small piece of Scotch tape near the bottom of the pack indi cates that the tobacco ciga rettes have been replaced by reefers. One alley lined by brothels near the base is also a marijuana den. Says one trooper, “There’s so much marijuana in that alley that if it ever caught fire, it would stone out all of Saigon.” Government officials are usually loath to talk about the problem. One 1966 Joint United States Public Affairs Office press release underestimated the situation, stating “One soldier in 2,000 has been found to possess or use marijuana.” Slowly since then the brass has be gun to admit that the pro blem is bigger than this. Figures for 1967 over 1966 show an increase of mari juana-smoking reaching 62 per cent. And this figure re flects only officially investi gated cases and does not cover the tens of thousands of GIs who are smoking but have not been caught. The Defense Department an nounced in January that nearly nine out of 10 young soldiers court-martialed for military offenses in Vietnam had smoked marijuana be fore they joined the service. Continuing their habit be 24 Panorama came quite easy when they reached the streets of Sai gon. “There is just no way of really telling how many men have used drugs,” say Colo nel Everett G. Hopson, an Air Force officer involved in investigating narcotics. “If I were to hazard a fig ure it could be as high as 15 to 20 percent. That is the figure experts use when they talk about how many high school and college stu dents have tried some kind of drug, and those are the people we pull into the ser vice.” John Steinbeck Jr., son of the late author, stirred up a Pentagon hornet’s nest when he returned from Vietnam to say that 60 per cent of the GIs “turned on” and that he had “direct ex perience” with about 350 marijuana users in the mili tary including “a great num ber of military police and legal officers.” Another major problem is that the GI smokers, after their year’s tour is up, are trying to bring marijuana back into the States with them. A record 26,000 pounds of the drug has been seized from GIs in the last fiscal year — twice as much as during the previous 12 months. Admits Colonel Hopson, “A soldier leaving Vietnam may have his baggage care fully screened without his knowing it.” About 50 Ger man shepherd dogs have been trained at Fort Gordon, Ga., to recognize the scent of marijuana. The dogs sniff the stuff even when it’s con cealed in duffle bags or care fully wrapped. Another drug sensor is a small X ray spot ting tlevice which can “look into” suitcases and boxes searching lor marijuana. The VC are so clever that for a time some GI prison ers at the LBJ — the Long Binh Jail, the GI name for the Army stockade — were actually getting marijuana even though behind bars. The junk was being slipped in from the outside through “trusties.” A stockade of ficer accidentally picked up a pack of cigarettes from a desk one day, lit one, and found he was smoking mari juana. The pack probably had been dumped by a frightened guard. Aphti. 1969 25 In Cam Lo, just south ol the DMZ, infantrymen get pot from children who live in the refugee camp there. Sharp Vietnamese kids at Da Nang make money by dou blecrossing U.S. Marines. They peddle a few joints to a trusting trooper, then dou ble time to the nearest MP and collect a reward for re porting that the Marine has junk his possession. An increasingly common practice is to lace the ma rijuana with opium; this gives a higher high. “You’ll put both legs around the rafters when you smoke one of these,’’ says one CID in vestigator. It is such opiate additives that have psychia trists worried about pot smokers in Vietnam. The opium trade is al most as active as the ma rijuana business. Vietnam has long been one of the major way stations in the world's opium traffic. The poppies come out of Laos, Northern Thailand, Burma and Red China through Viet nam on their way to the Western World. Tons of opium pass through Saigon every year. Rumors have long had it that Saigon gov ernment officials are working with the VC to make illegal fortunes in this opium traf fic. A major Pentagon problem is that since a GI figures he’s breaking the law' by smoking pot, he becomes a law breaker in other ways as well. Many deserters in Saigon live comfortably by selling marijuana and opium to American servicemen. Marijuana income long sup ported the “Home of Lonely Hearts” on Cong Ly Street, which appeared to be just a booking office for Saigon’s call girls but was actually part of an extensive criminal network that furnished Ame rican deserters with every thing they needed, from forged identification papers to pistols. Is pot smoking confined to the rear areas or is it done in the battlefield? Ma jor Robert Donovan, Assist ant Provost Marshall of the First Air Cav. Division, be lieves “few troops smoke in the field because the GIs have a strong sense of lo yalty to other soldiers they’re with and they’re afraid of what people will think." 26 Panorama Adds one Marine Sergeant, 'Out in the field we never sntoke, but here in our bar racks we’re smoking all the time. I’d say half the guys in this town smoke grass a lot.” On the other hand, one Saigon-based newsman recent ly reported spending a night with a Fourth Infantry Di vision patiol in the central high-lands during which ten soldiers wiled away the eve ning in their tent by smoking pot. A First Air Cav. Divi sion doctor says medical men occasionally see wounded soldiers in clearing stations whom they suspect may be high on pot. One group of soldiers whose job is to es cort dead bodies from the field into the mortuaries at Saigon and Da Nang told a reporter recently that they were taking marijuana from four out of every five Ame rican dead during Tet. “We took a pack of Camels off a lieutenant,” they said. “It turned out to be full of joints.” GIs in Vietnam apparently smoke pot for the same rea sons that college students in the States turn on: to re lieve tension and boredom, because they are looking ’for a kick and as a means of rebelling against authority. Many pot Smokers are among the most intelligent mem bers of the regiment. Says Colonel Douglas Lindsey, a medic, ‘‘Soldiers who smoke pot are more likely to be found among the better sol diers in the unit.” Officially, the government takes a hard line on marijua na. Raids are frequent. CID men posing as GIs in search of a smoke constantly try to seek out VC suppliers. MPs and Vietnamese cops frequently stage joint raids on suspected cellars and bars. When GI bar patrons see a raid coming, they dump the contents of their pockets on the floor. The sweeping af ter one recent raid produced about 30 joints. The main reason behind this hard line is that Army authorities agree that it’s a good source of income for the VC and reduces the ef fectiveness of the U.S. troops. “The enemy is the big push er,” warns a First Cav. offi cer. "The use of marijuana in Vietnam not only endan gers the life of the user but also the lives of those de 27 April 1969 pending upon him for the successful accomplishment of his mission.” The Army feels the mari juana user is as dangerous behind the wheel of a car as a drunk. In Vietnam, where any trooper can get his hands on a weapon and ammunition easily, anything that affects his judgment can be dangerous. ‘‘Mari juana and gun powder don’t mix,” says one officer. As evidence, authorities point to an incident at Cu Chi which was being hit by Vietcong rockets. Two troopers, high on maryjane, became so enchanted with the fireworks that they sat on the sandbag wall to watch. A round landed a. few yards away, killing one of the soldiers and wounding the other. In another case, two airmen at Tan Son Nhut were killed while passing a hand grenade back and forth with the pin pulled. The men were high on pot. Although the Pentagon in sists it is holding to a hard line against marijuana, in the ranks, there’s a great deal of permissiveness. Some GIs say their officers and NCOs know there is pot in the outfit but don’t turn in smokers, especially in combat outfits. “If a guy’s been on the line a while and is ex perienced,” says one sergeant, “why should the company commander turn him in for smoking a little pot? He's going to lose a good man and get a green replacement.” The strong bonds of loyalty and friendship which grow between men in units who face combat together can of ten make a line officer or NCO reluctant to turn a pot-smoking trooper over to the MPs. “We’ve talked to some kids who smoked ma rijuana and we haven’t pro secuted them,” says one legal officer, “because we were con vinced they tried it only once and didn’t use it re gularly. Almost every col lege kid in the U.S. is ex perimenting with pot. We can’t expect our soldiers not to.” It adds up to a major di lemma. The soft-liners, in side the military and out, say that marijuana is less harmful than liquor or to bacco and shouldn’t be il legal. Hard-liners answer that drugs are harmful and should 28 Panorama be controlled even if it means handing out bad con duct discharges and five years’ hard labor in jail — the maximum sentence for drug offenses. And all the time, Victor Charlie’s getting rich on the proceeds, possibly beating with marijuana cigarettes those American GIs whom he hasn’t been able to de feat with gun powder. By Arturo F. Gonzalez Jr., from the Science Digest, April 1969 issue. DEPARTMENTAL TERMINOLOGY DEFINITIONS It is in process — So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless. Expedite — To confound confusion with commo tion. To implement a program — Hire more people and expand the office. Under consideration — Never heard of it. Under active consideration — We’re looking in the files for it. Reliable source — The guy you just met. Informed source — The guy who told the guy you just met. Unimpeachable source — The guy who started the rumor originally. A clarification — To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes under ground. Give us the benefit of your present thinking — We’ll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn’t interfere with what we have al ready decided to do. — From The Communicator, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. April 1969 29

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