Cold turkey, Vietnam-style

Press, 13 July 1984, Page 33

Cold turkey, Vietnam-style

NZPA-Reuter Ho Chi Minh City A month of cold turkey, acupuncture, massage and cold showers, three months of re-education, and 12 to 24 months of labour — these are the main ingredients in Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation programme. Vietnamese officials estimate there are now only about 4000 drug addicts in Ho Chi Minh City, down from 150,000 in 1975 when it was still called Saigon and the South Vietnamese Government collapsed. But their terminology is loose and statistics are inexact. They blame most of the drug problem on the former South Vietnamese Government and the United States but concede that some young Vietnamese continue to seek drugs as a refuge. They also say that within three years they hope to eliminate addiction through medical treatment, exercise and re-education.

A key part of that plan is Ho Chi Minh City’s drug rehabilitation centre which

has some 700 patients, 90 per cent of whom are men aged between 25 and 70. Nguyen Quang Van, director of the centre, said some 12,000 people had gone through the drug rehabilitation programme since the centre was set up in November, 1975. “Curing the patient medically is easier than curing him psychologically,” he said. Patients are given one month to end their habit through an abrupt break with drugs eased by acupuncture, massage, and cold showers. That is followed by three months of re-education and 12 to 24 months of labour such as woodworking, sewing, or farming. The physical work is therapeutic for the patient and rewarding to the State. In the first half of this year, the centre earned 7.4 million dong (about $NZ963,225 at the official exchange rate) from goods produced by its patients. But in Vietnam there is another aid to treatment. The patient is often sent to a State farm where life is

spartan and work is hard. “Generally speaking, our programme has been successful,” said Van. Vietnam is fortunate as its main problem is with opium and not the far deadlier heroin. Most users mash the opium, mix it with water and then inject it. Van says most drugs in Vietnam are smuggled from abroad. But wherever they come from, they are readily available. Large-scale drug dealers can be jailed for up to seven years, but some of the smaller traffickers are put in the rehabilitation centre, according to Van. Most of the patients at the centre were brought in by the State security apparatus. But in some cases the family or the individual himself sought assistance. Such was the case with Sen Van Lai, aged 32, a -driver, who said he talked the decision over with his wife. Not only did he have the willpower to bring himself in for treatment, he also has hope. “I want to be a driver again ... I want to stop taking drugs,” he said.