NCJ Number
172384
Date Published
1998
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This study of Vietnam veterans exposed to heroin during the war examined whether heroin use progresses rapidly to daily use and addiction, whether heroin use is so much more pleasurable than other drugs that it supplants them, whether heroin addiction is more or less permanent unless there is prolonged treatment, whether maintaining recovery requires abstinence, and whether heroin use is a major social problem.
Abstract
The men interviewed had been randomly selected from a computer tape of returning veterans, and researchers also had access to the Surgeon General's list of men who had been detected as drug users at departure. A random selection from this list allowed oversampling men detected as drug users at departure. A total of 617 men were interviewed between October and December of 1974, 3 years after their return from Vietnam. The study found that heroin in the forms available in the United States in late 1974 was no more likely to be used regularly or daily, if used at all, than were marijuana or amphetamines. Compared with marijuana and amphetamines, what is distinctive about heroin is the fact that daily users perceive themselves as dependent. Despite their dependence, however, they manage to quit using the drug much more often than anticipated and can often return to use without becoming dependent again. Heroin users are extreme polydrug users, and they were disposed to having serious social problems even before they began using heroin. The study concludes that American society has overemphasized the importance of treatment for heroin per se, failing to pay attention to the many other problems that heroin addicts have. 3 references, 5 tables, and 5 figures