The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia

Introduction: The Consequences of Complicity
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
Introduction:
The Consequences of Complicity
* Notes can be found here
AMERICA is in the grip of a devastating heroin epidemic which leaves no city or suburb untouched, and which also runs rampant through every
American military installation both here and abroad. And the plague is spreading-into factories and offices (among the middle-aged, middle-class
workers as well as the young), into high schools and now grammar schools. In 1965 federal narcotics officials were convinced that they had the
problem under control; there were only 57,000 known addicts in the entire country, and most of these were comfortably out of sight, out of mind in
black urban ghettos.(1)* Only three or four years later heroin addiction began spreading into white communities, and by late 1969 the estimated
number of addicts jumped to 315,000. By late 1971 the estimated total had almost doubled-reaching an all-time high of 560,000.(2) One medical
researcher discovered that 6.5 percent of all the blue-collar factory workers he tested were heroin addicts,(3) and army medical doctors were
convinced that 10 to 15 percent of the GIs in Vietnam were heroin users.(4) In sharp contrast to earlier generations of heroin users, many of these
newer addicts were young and relatively affluent.
The sudden rise in the addict population has spawned a crime wave that has turned America's inner cities into concrete jungles. Addicts are forced
to steal in order to maintain their habits, and they now account for more than 75 percent of America's urban crime.(5) After opinion polls began to
show massive public concern over the heroin problem, President Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in a June 1971 statement to Congress. He urged
passage of a $370 million emergency appropriation to fight the heroin menace. However, despite politically motivated claims of success in
succeeding months by administration spokesmen, heroin continues to flood into the country in unprecedented quantities, and there is every
indication that the number of hard-core addicts is increasing daily.
file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/book/02.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:29]