DEA agents are in Vietnam this month to train Vietnamese anti-drug officers how to conduct drug raids American-style, but local UN officials say you can't police your way out of a drug problem. Still, that's not stopping the American drug warriors from teaching door-kicking-in and other skills they consider necessary for their paramilitarized approach to drug law enforcement.
According to a report from Voice of America radio [14], DEA agents like Joe Boix, the agency's head firearms and tactical instructor in the state of Arizona, are showing the Vietnamese how it's done back home. As Boix watched, a column of masked Vietnamese police practiced raiding a drug den.
"Someone needs to be on that side of the door," said Agent Boix. The agents kicked in the door and enter the room. "Protect your back. Turn around now," continued Boix.
"The drug problem is an international problem, and it's killing children, and it's killing families, and it's all the same no matter where you go," Boix told VOA.
Although Vietnam is not a drug producer, it has seen rising levels of heroin addiction since it opened itself to foreign trade two decades ago. Amphetamines and ecstasy are also popular. But the DEA isn't particularly concerned about drug use in Vietnam; rather, it wants to crack down on the use of the country as a transshipment point in the global drug trade.
"Our main thrust is to go after the international organizations. We'll help them out. That's what this training is for, to help them deal with their internal problem. But we want to go after the bigger organizations, the large ones, international in scope," said Jeff Wanner, the DEA officer at the US Embassy in Hanoi.
While training exercises like the one now on-going may help increase cooperation between US and Vietnamese law enforcement, it is unlikely to reduce drug use rates in Vietnam, and may even exacerbate problems related to drug abuse, said Jason Eligh, a harm reduction specialist at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Hanoi office.
"If police enforcement is extremely strong, extremely rigid, concerned about stopping all things related to drugs, imprisoning people, imposing strict fines, that's going to cause heroin users to flee from authority, Eligh told VOA. "In Vietnam, drug use is classified as a social evil and as a crime. Where there's strong enforcement, you're seeing drug users not want to engage in services," he said.
When tough law enforcement drives drug users underground, the result can be higher rates of HIV infection, Eligh said. Nor was he particularly enamored of the current Vietnamese approach to drug users, which is to intern them in mandatory rehabilitation camps, generally for two years, but sometimes for as long as five years, but then offers few services once drug users go back home.
"There are a number of better ways of dealing with drug dependence, and this is not one of them. Certainly methadone is by far the best approach to heroin dependence that we have in the world today," said Eligh.
Vietnam recently began implementing its first methadone maintenance programs. That's a more progressive and humane approach than either the rehab camps or American-style drug raids.