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relationship with Thai officials. BNDD officials, who are attached to the United States embassy, are based in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Embassy officials have been instrumental in forming an Illicit Drug Control Committee under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chief of Mission. It includes representatives from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the U.S. military, the United States Information Service, the U.S. Overseas Mission and the Regional Economic Development Agency. The committee has submitted to the Department of State for approval a $1,193,000 program designed to pose economic alternatives to the opium producer, assist in law enforcement activities, provide medical care and rehabilitation of addicts and initiate an educational program directed against drug abuse. To date, no money has been programed to implement the committee's recommendations.

Thai law enforcement attempts

Despite the King's clear support of attempts to eradicate opiates and the Thai government's official position of cooperation with United States officials, positive actions have been minimal. Most Thai officials discount their government's responsibilities and place the blame on the countries to which drug traffic flows. The 1966 pamphlet, "Thailand's Hill Tribes", by General Prapas Charusathira, Minister of the Interior and Chairman of the Hill Tribes Welfare Committee, reflects this attitude:

Several of the larger tribes derive their income from opium cultivation. The real culprits in the Thailand opium trade are the consumers in London, Sydney and New York.

Thai attempts to eradicate the growth and distribution of opium and its derivatives are failing. Despite an apparently cooperative police effort and a sincere desire by the King to develop crop substitution programs, the poppy fields in northern Thailand are flourishing, the number of refineries is increasing and shipments from tri-border countries travel the Mae Sai-Bangkok highway virtually unimpeded.

The number of men and amount of modern equipment devoted to the effort are minimal. The only law enforcement agency in the area, the Border Patrol Police, consists of approximately 1,000 men responsible for 1,079 kilometers of border-about one man per mile.

Although the BPP evidences concern about its obligation to interdict the incoming flow of opium across these borders, insurgency by Chinese communists and thirteen Burma based rebel groups has forced the BPP to accept pressing military concerns as its primary mission. Leaders of the BPP reason that unless and until border security against communist insurgency is established, it cannot establish effective border integrity against the illicit importation of opiates.

The commander of one of the Border Patrol Police units, whose troops were engaged in a counterinsurgency operation at the time he briefed subcommittee members in Chiang Khan, clearly accepted as one of his responsibilities the support of programs such as crop substitution designed to discourage the hill people from cultivating the poppy. However, it appeared that practically of his troops were involved in combat operations at the time.

Despite the fact that the communist insurgents are equipped with AK-47's, a Russian-made automatic weapon similar to the U.S. M-16, weapons used by the police and their supporters predate

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World War II. The subcommittee members observed a team of Mieo hill tribe volunteers equipped with Springfield '03 rifles prepared to commence a combat operation. They are unable to secure U.S.-made M-16s due to the apparent belief of officials within the Public Safety Division of USAID that, because the unit is referred to as "police", it does not conduct military operations.

The four man Central Bureau of Narcotics in Chiang Mai, whose responsibility includes the four northernmost provinces, is equipped with one vehicle and three carbines. Obviously, theirs is an impossible task.

Another obstacle to meaningful control is the remoteness, both geographic and political, of northern Thailand from the Bangkok government. As a result, stern measures against the Thai government, such as threats to cut off aid, would have little effect on the hill tribesmen. One embassy official believes that if the Thai government were to mount a strenuous campaign against opiates, an action which would pose an economic threat to the tribesmen, the government would lose the northern provinces to the communists.

Background

VIETNAM

Four months ago, a report drafted by the participants in a conference and workshop on drug rehabilitation, composed of 182 officers and enlisted men, was withheld from the Commanding General, United States Army, Vietnam, to whom it was intended to be directed. The report described in shocking detail the seriousness of the drug abuse problem in Vietnam. It recommended that a task force directly responsible to the Commanding General be established in order to alleviate "the demand for immediate information to combat this nemesis". The report stated:

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A disparity presently exists between the reports shown on the level of drug abuse in Vietnam and the consensus held by the conferees. The conference established that the "gut-feeling", undocumented reports from people who live with the problem, placed heroin addiction among lower ranking EM in the US Army at 25%. A USARV Task Force would provide the Commanding General with a more realistic base, from which to judge the accuracy of this "gut-feeling”. Hard statistical data, based on surveys presented to the conference, showed a range of heroin use between 10% and 44%. Time is essential! This Task Force should be established as soon as possible in order to present the accurate status of the drug problem to the Commanding General. Most conferees were openly skeptical of the accuracy of the information thus far presented to the Commanding General on drug abuse. The Task Force will be an action agency. It must focus all of its attention on this problem.

The report which ultimately was placed on the General's desk contained none of this information. Nor did it recommend the establishment of the sorely-needed task force. To the best of the subcommittee's knowledge, the Commanding General still has not seen the original report.

Spurred by an increasing awareness of the magnitude of the problem, as well as pressure from Congress and the White House, the various armed services in Vietnam have developed educational and treatment. programs. Although the educational programs appear to be having a positive effect, treatment programs suffer from a lack of trained personnel and facilities.

The extent of drug addiction in Vietnam

The subcommittee members believe that it is insignificant whether the rate of drug abuse by our troops in Vietnam is five percent or forty percent. Whatever the rate, military commanders and the United States Government must marshal all possible efforts against the availability and use of heroin and other crippling drugs. Nevertheless, in order to enact meaningful legislation, the subcommittee must receive information concerning the nature and extent of the problem. Despite repeated requests, members of the subcommittee were not given statistical information which would indicate the extent of the use of heroin in Vietnam by U.S. servicemen. This refusal results in further difficulties for those charged with the responsibility for finding solutions to the drug abuse problem and undermines confidence in statistics which have been released to the public. Officials at the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, stated that the instructions to withhold information came from the White House.

The only statistical information afforded the subcommittee members in Vietnam was that previously provided by Dr. Jerome Jaffee, Special Consultant to the President for Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs during testimony in Washington. Dr. Jaffee's figures indicated that between 5.33 percent and 5.46 percent of all servicemen who had undergone urinalysis prior to leaving Vietnam had been determined to have abused hard drugs during the previous forty-eight hour period. While the subcommittee has no basis on which to contest the urinalysis statistics, they are not an accurate indication of the extent of the drug addiction problem in Vietnam. These percentages probably are not even indicative of the number of Army personnel who fail the urinalysis tests at the centers located at Cam Ranh Bay and Long Binh, because the figures are based on total military population in Vietnam: generals, as well as admirals, and sailors stationed aboard ship are included in the percentages released to the public.

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At Long Binh, from 1000 to 1200 samples are taken per day. On August 13, 1971, the day before the subcommittee visited the Long Binh testing facility, 87 positive urines were found, indicating a percentage of from 7.25 to 8.7.

Moreover, the much-publicized five percent figure does not include servicemen who have been arrested for drug-related crimes, participants in amnesty programs, deaths as a result of overdoses or hospital discharges for drug related illnesses. The percentage of servicemembers identified through these means is higher than the percentage identified through urinalysis. Table B is a United States Army listing of cases involving possession or use of narcotic drugs identified by these means during the period January through May 1971, prior to implementation of the urinalysis program. The figures rose from a percentage of 9.23 in January-February to 11.6 during April-May, despite the absence of the testing procedures being employed today. Figures for subsequent months have been suppressed.

Subcommittee members were advised by one knowledgeable Army medical officer that the heroin use in his brigade approximated 30 percent. One serviceman undergoing detoxification under an amnesty program stated that 95 percent of his unit smoked or snorted heroin. Another stated that "everyone but the First Sergeant" in his unit abused drugs. Both statements may be exaggerations, but they do point out the extent of the problem in the mind of those involved-the addicts.

The subcommittee members conclude that the extent of drug abuse among servicemen in Vietnam far exceeds the recently publicized figure of five percent. While figures obviously vary considerably between units and branch of service, the members do not quarrel with estimates that drug addiction by enlisted men in many units ranges from 15 to 40 percent and believe the estimates that 10 percent of enlisted men stationed in Vietnam are addicted to heroin to be cautious.

66-841 O 72 pt. 4-6