Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

363Mr, Ingersoll. No, sir. This particular traffic, which I might sayis still a very small proportion of the heroin traffic into the UnitedStates, is composed largely of independent groups of people.Some of them, many of them as a matter of fact, are ex-servicemenvvho have got back out to the Far East to deal in this and other formsof conti-aband traffic.Mr. Steiger. So that the organized crime traffic in heroin is primarilysustained from the Turkish source and not from this Far Eastsource at this point ?Mr. Ingersoll. Yes ; except that I should also mention that there aremore people than just those who we traditionally classify as membersof organized crime involved in this traffic as well. There is a good dealof competitive effort and dispersion of efforts.]\lr. Steiger. You are talking about the total picture ?Mr.lNGERSOLL. Ycs, sir. I mean Europe, as well.Mr. Steiger. Yes.Mr. Ingersoll. The producers of heroin in Europe will sell to anybodywho has the money, and more and more people have made contactwith them and are providing the money. So it is not restricted tojust one identifiable group.Mr. Steiger. Thank you.Thank you, Mr. Chairman.Chairman Pepper. Mr. Brasco.Mr. Brasco. I am sorry I was late, Mr. Chairman, but I had to attendanother hearing.Mr. Ingersoll, several weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit at aninformal meeting of Members of Congress from the Queens area inNew York, in which we heard a number of representatives of differentveterans organizations complain about this growing number ofservicemen who are becoming addicted to heroin, drug abusers in general.There was a representative of the Department of Defense, whosename I can't recall at this time, but at that point the veterans organizationshad some people with them who were talking a figure of ashigh as 70 percent in terms of hard-core addiction and ranging ondown to abuse of other substances, other than heroin.The Department of Defense individual, as I recall, said the figurewas something like 35 to 40 percent.I am wondering whether or not your trip could shed any light onthis point as to whether we know how many of our servicemen arebecoming involved as drug abusers in Vietnam or in the SoutheastAsia area.jMr. Ingersoll. I am dependent, Mr. Brasco, on Department of Defenseinformation as far as servicemen are concerned, and in my mostrecent trip I really didn't focus on marihuana abuse and matters ofthat nature. I was immediately, and almost exclusively, concernedwith the growing heroin problem.Our military officials in Vietnam have conducted surveys which atdifferent periods of time report different things. As I recall, the lastgeneral kind of survey like this was in the high forties—48, 49 percent.The abuse problem varies as to age, as to rank, length of time in thecountry, and a variety of other factors. For example, these surveysreport no heroin use among officers, even junior officers, but they do