How bad was the heroin problem during the Vietnam War?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Dr_Alfred_W._McCoy.27s_account_of_the_history_of_the_heroin_trade
In southeast Asia, the governments of most countries and many colonial officials had been involved in the opium trade for a very long time. The Vietnam War and CIA operations in Laos had the unintended consequence of first opening up many areas of Southeast Asia to modern transportation and then presenting a ready-made market for the drug among the U.S. military personnel stationed in the region.
The turning point came in 1970-71 when the first high-grade heroin laboratories opened in the Golden Triangle. Prior to this, the chemical skills for refinement had existed only in Europe. This gave the opium producers control over the creation of the final product. The hundreds of thousands of American servicemen in Vietnam provided a perfect market for the heroin producers, and heroin use among soldiers rapidly increased.
the problem wasn't bad its just that the heroin was more potent and when soldiers came home the heroin here wasn't as strong which mean they had to do more in order to find that high they had back in Nam.
Laos Market
laos market
