╥In this place,╙ said the soldier with a grin, ╥you can blow your mind every night of the year.╙ In the language of the marijuana culture familiar to most Americans under 30 but sadly baffling to most of the rest, the young soldier was saying that here in Vietnam, cannabis, pot, the weed, giggle-smoke, grass, Mary Jane, call it what you will, is readily available and freely used.
This does not mean as obscure Congressmen sometimes assert that half the army is permanently stoned or that the war is turning America╒s youth into drug addicts. But as anyone who has spent time with the military knows, very many soldiers under 25, particularly those doing the fighting, use marijuana to relax and take their minds off the war.
Largely because smoking pot is illegal, there has been a marked absence of good statistics. Undoubtedly the army has played it down, saying, quite rightly, that most marijuana users picked up the habit before they came to Vietnam. A very senior military police officer told me: ╥Just remember that most of our fighting men don╒t fall. You should give credit to the great majority.╙
Weekly smokes
But how great is the majority? A few months ago the brigade surgeon of the 173 Airborne Brigade conducted an anonymous survey of about a thousand men in a tactical unit. He discovered that 69 per cent did not use pot, but he pointed out that the unit contained less than its share of draftees. When it came to the men aged between 20 and 25, he reported that 45 per cent smoked pot at least once a week.
For some, pot is an antidote to fear. Since General Westmoreland╒s time most of the fighting has been done by small patrols, many of which can go for weeks without meeting the enemy, stumbling into an ambush, or kicking a booby trap. Then one day it happens. Your number comes up. Terror is in the unexpected.
Grunts (the expressive slang for an infantryman) on patrol tend not to use pot. Most of them have heard chilling stories of stoned soldiers who have blundered into deadly ambushes. A young lieutenant confirms this: ╥My platoon averaged 23 men of whom maybe three did not use grass. Most of the fellows wouldn╒t allow anyone to smoke in the field.╙
An infantry captain who first came to Vietnam in 1967 told me: ╥In the field we had no problem. What I mean is I never noticed that any of my guys were stoned. It did not get in the way of what they had to do. I╒m neutral as far as pot is concerned. You can have just as much trouble from alcohol.╙
But if there is a self-imposed prohibition in the field (and this varies from unit to unit), when troops return to their forward fire support bases the goof-butts light up. These camps are makeshift and frequently uncomfortable. There is always a good chance they will be attacked and their guns pound away deafeningly into the night.
╥Usually,╙ said the lieutenant, ╥there╒s no beer at a fire support base. Maybe the officers in their tents have a couple of shots of liquor to keep their spirits up. The guys in the dugouts listen to music, smoke grass and get pleasantly high. You can╒t blame them.╙
Small things
Another officer said: ╥You╒ve got to use your sense in Vietnam. You can╒t pounce on guys for small things otherwise you╒ll have trouble on your hands.╙
Although a lot of marijuana is smoked under these conditions more is probably consumed in the big divisional base camps. Companies come in from the field and smoke to relax: the officers who live in the base camps smoke through sheer boredom. Sometimes they are tempted to turn to drugs stronger than marijuana. Some buy narcotics which seem to be used only by a very small minority. ╥Most guys,╙ said a young sergeant from Brooklyn, ╥are not that stupid.╙
At these divisional base camps potheads are most likely to come up against authority. This means ╥them╙ ╤ the men over 30, career officers or senior NCOs, whom they call ╥lifers.╙ Because the American army has been so inflated by draftees and young college officers, lifers are in the minority.
Now while alcohol has long been the accepted escape route for the military establishment, pot is considered dangerous. The lifers, who are the establishment, tend to lump all drugs together (apart from alcohol), equate them with crime and, theoretically at least, take up an attitude which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would fill every military jail in Vietnam many times over.
In fact the incidence of cases involving marijuana known to the authorities is absurdly low (two per thousand men in 1969) and the conviction rate lower still. This suggests either that the command is turning a blind eye to the very open activities of many young soldiers or that it doesn╒t care to tangle with them.
Ignorance
There is also blissful ignorance. One soldier said: ╥Field-grade officers (majors and colonels) often don╒t know what╒s happening right under their noses. They don╒t know what grass is about. I had one commander who regularly sent his radio operator to the base camp to get mail and things and he used to come back with a knapsack full.╙
Procuring marijuana in Vietnam is easier than getting a drink in London. There is no closing time. ╥In every camp in the country,╙ an army doctor confided, ╥I bet you can get a joint within five minutes.╙ The weed grows wild, the weed is cultivated. Vietnamese rarely use it but since the Americans arrived they have discovered a new cash crop.
With three harvests a year, the Mekong Delta is the marijuana bowl of Vietnam. Until police moved in to destroy crops, some farmers were giving up rice and turning to cannabis. But destruction urged by the army and United States federal agents hardly touches the supply.
╥We call it Vietnam╒s cottage industry,╙ one of the Americans in charge of drug suppression told me with a grin.
Across the street from where I am standing there is a cigarette stand. If you ask for Pall Mall ╤ ╥The very strong ones╙ ╤ you will get an expertly wrapped Pall Mall pack, Cellophane and all. But inside each cigarette will have had its tobacco taken out and finely manicured marijuana put in its place.
╥Destruction is pretty pointless in Vietnam. Over the border in Laos best quality cannabis costs even less: at a dollar a kilo it is sold openly and legally in Vientiane.
Very sensibly the army puts most of its effort into education. Most units have an admirable ╥amnesty programme.╙ If a soldier feels he needs treatment ╤ in some units even after he has been apprehended by the law ╤ he can go to the surgeon or the chaplain without fear of charges or notes on his record.
Problems
The survey, already mentioned, made by the surgeon of the 173 Airborne Brigade concluded by saying: ╥What we have seen clinically is a majority of rather incapable, frustrated, poorly educated, passive-aggressive personalities complicating the many problems they already have by becoming involved with the use of marijuana.╙
But another brigade surgeon showed the army╒s other face. ╥I regard the use of drugs as just another symptom,╙ he said. ╥In Vietnam all there is for most people to do, is what they don╒t want to do. I╒ve no doubt that pot aggravates a man╒s existing psychotic problems.╙ Then he added as a parting shot : ╥But if I was five years younger I╒d probably be smoking the stuff myself.╙
