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Doctor Dope

By VVAW

The appointment of Dr. Jerome Jaffe as a special consultant to the President on drug abuse was, according the Nixon administration, the beginning of an all-out drive to check drug dependency, especially among military troops in Southeast Asia. Jaffe began his campaign by instituting the urinalysis test, "for all soldiers returning to the United States, regardless of their rank", in an attempt to locate the drug dependant soldier and provide him with a rehabilitation program. A closer look at the effectiveness of Jaffe's detection and rehabilitation processes doesn't appear to be even nearly the same program he has been advertising in the straight press so often in recent months.

Early this month, the Pentagon released figures on the drug dependency among soldiers returning to the United States from Vietnam showing that roughly 5% of troops rotating home were found to have opiate content in their urine. These men are flown to the United States on medical evacuation flights, to either Travis AFB, California, or McChord AFB, Washington. Those arriving in Washington are sent to Madigan General Hospital in Tucoma to Ward 27 for detoxification and rehabilitation. We visited Ward 27 to see the detoxification program firsthand and rap with some of the brothers in the ward.

Ward 27 is a "lock-up". The ward is sealed and a sign warns that no visitors or unauthorized personnel may be admitted. One of the brothers, a doctor who supervises the ward, saw out VVAW buttons and immediately opened the door and welcomed us to the Army's most advanced step in drug rehabilitation so far. The doctor had directed Ward 27 since its beginning on July 12 of this year and in that time about 15% of all the soldiers returning to Madigan Hospital aboard medical evacuation flights were drug dependency cases bound for this ward. Never had an officer of NCO above the grade of E-7 been sent to his ward although many of us who have been to Vietnam know that officers and senior NCO's are not all "ideal" soldiers in every respect (military). Some are drug users. Testing controls for officers and senior-non-commissioned officers are not as rigid during United States bound processing as they are for enlisted men while they take their urinalysis test. Not only is the urine analysis fairly easy to slip through by virtue of its poorly structured administration but also the real junkie, with the greatest incentive for not being detected as an addict, has a wide range of methods to choose from when his time comes to rotate to the "world". These methods include adding salt to his urine sample or simply paying $25.00 for a clean sample. The result is that many "junkies" arriving for detoxification at Madigan Hospital are not junkies at all but a group who smoked an opium dipped "jay" the night before the test not concerned about passing a test for heroin addiction but also not realizing that the opium would show up in the urine sample the next morning. So what follows for the soldier who is sent up to Ward 27 for detoxification? After five days in the "lock-up" the soldier who is truly drug dependant is faced with several alternatives. We talked to John Smothers who is director of the fort Lewis, Washington drug rehabilitation and counseling program who told us after the lock-up phase at Madigan Hospital, soldiers who are due for separation, as most draftees are, must extend for at least sixty days in order to enter either a residential or out-patient treatment center located on the Fort itself, "both facilities existing only on paper at this time". For the GI who began shooting heroin to negate his role as a soldier, the idea of extending in that very same Army is probably quite unsuitable to most junkies, even if they are ready for rehabilitation will not be able to receive that help from the Army even after the engineers change one of the barracks into a "half-way house" sometime this winter.

What then, Mr. Smothers, will the Army do about those men who developed their dependency while in the Army but can't be rehabilitated there? The sstonishing answer, "Five days is enough time for the junkie to clean up". This is in reference to the lock-up phase, and then the recurrence of the drug addiction after separation is apparently no their responsibility of the Army according to Mr. Smother's rationale. I asked smothers if his program might possibly be a public relations gimmick to ease the dissatisfaction of people over drug problems in the military? Smothers swore loudly saying that such a situation was absurd!

The real situation of drug rehabilitation in the military and the one portrayed in press releases after press releases to the American people is sadly enough quite different. The Nixon Administration, then Dr. Jaffe has attempted to minimize a problem that deeply concerns all Americans. Some American mothers can tolerate seeing their son in Army green, but few can tolerate this if they know he may return to them as a heroin addict. Not only does drug dependency pose a threat to Nixon's continued effort to sell the last chapter of the war to people, but also it weighs heavily as a deterrent to a residual force remaining indefinitely in Vietnam. Residual occupation forces means more GI junkies. Can we as the people continue to pay the government a price for this high?

As Veterans against the war we cannot allow Nixon, or Jaffe or the Pentagon to pull the carpet out from under this issue or to minimize a massive and tragic problem. Even more importantly we must continue in our effort for Rehabilitation programs for veterans and our brothers and sisters still in the military who deserve a rehabilitation program with a more sensible design than Mr. Smothers at Fort Lewis is presently offering.