Vietnam Veterans Three Years after Vietnam- How Our Study Changed Our View of Heroin

摘要

In May of 1971, two congressmen who went to Vietnam reported extensive heroin use among American soldiers. Almost immediately thereafter, the Department of Defense, under Dr. Jerome Jaffe's urging, set up a urine-screening program intended to detect all men using heroin at the time of their departure from Vietnam. They were then to be detoxified in order that they not arrive in the United States still addicted.On his return from overseeing the establishment of the urine-screening program, Dr. Jaffe asked me to design and carry out a follow-up study of returning veterans to learn the consequences of heroin use in Vietnam. In response, we interviewed about 900 of the 14,000 Army enlisted men who returned to the United States in September 1971, the first month in which this urine-screening and detoxification system was operating uniformly throughout Vietnam. The interviews took place between May and October of 1972, 8-12 months after their return (Robins, 1974).