WASHINGTON CLOSE-UP, Homage to CIA Drug Fight Ironic

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-06180A000300240024-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 1999
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: June 29, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For KW se 1 V~,9i3
WASHINGTON CLOSE-UP
110mace to
inc
e merican Medical sso-
elation, which predictably of-
fers few surprises at its an-
nual meeting, achieved the un-
expected this year.
As one entered the conven-
tion's exhibition hall in San
Francisco's Civic Center,
one's nostrils were assailed by
an odor more appropriate to
that city's Haight-Ashbury dis-
trict - an aroma strongly
suggestive of the burning
leaves and blossoms of the fe-
male Cannabis saliva plant.
The scent fired the curiosity
of all in the ball who had ever
sampled marijuana and drew
from the wife of one physician
attending the meeting the re-
mark that she had smelled
that odor many times in the
back of the school bus she
drives.
That was only the beginning
of the surprise. Following
one's nose, one soon came
upon a booth housing an exhib-
it on drug abuse which fea-
tured a display about many
drugs, including pot, and a de-
vice that generated a synthetic
smoke that was close to, if not
identical with the real thing.
There was still more surpise
to come in this display, winch
- it turned ' out--had won
the gold medal in the AMA's
coveted Billings Prize compe-
tition as one of the outstanding
scientific exhibits of the meet-
ing. The exhibitor was no
mere doctor, or pharmaceuti-
cal firm, or even your aver-
age, run-of-the-mill science-
oriented government bureau.
It was that most unlikely of
contenders for an AMA
award: The Central Intelli-
gence Agency.
Dr. Donald Borcherding of
the CIA was on hand to ex-
plain the exhibit's origins.
Like most agencies, he said,
the CIA has' an occupational
health division whose job it is
to promote the well-being of
its personnel. When CIA offi-
cials at the agency's Langley,
&v
1 IA-RDP78-0 0A000300240024-3
rug Fight Ironic
By JUDITH RANDAL
a,, hea . quar ers e e a in e
worried about pot, LSD, speed,
heroin and the like, Borcherd-
ing and his colleagues assem-
bled the display. I,
According to the CIA medic,
it was an immediate hit, not
only at the Langley "Spook
Farm" but also among groups
in the community, such as
Knights of Columbus lodges
and parent-teacher associa-
tions. -The CIA is thinking
about putting together "how-
to-do-it" instructions so that
other groups can build their
own replicas.
Granted, the crusade
against drug abuse needs all
the help it can get. But the
trouble with the CIA exhibit is
that it does not tell things
strictly as they are, For exam-
ple, it implies that the use of
marijuana sets the stage for
later use of heroin. This issue
is by no means settled and, as
a matter of fact, there is a
good deal of evidence to sug-
gest that alcohol, rather than
marijuana, is the first drug to
be abused by most people who
subsequently become heroin
addicts.
In. any case, many experts
believe that if there is any.
connection whatever between
pot and heroin, it is their ille-
gal . status and that if the for-
mer were "decriminalized,"
its link with the latter would
tend to disappear.
More important to this dis-
cussion than an argument
about the casual relationship
of the two drugs is the point
that the CIA does not come
into the campaign with com-
pletely clean hands. Reporters
have been hearing for more
than a year that the agency
has been supporting the heroin
traffic in the Golden Triangle
region of Laos, Thailand and
Burma, and that this opium
byproduct has been one of the
more important cargoes car-
ried by Air America, an air-
line operating in Southeast
Asia w ose charter business is
almost exclusively with the
CIA. The Golden Triangle re-
gion, incidentally, is said to
grow 70 percent of the world's
illicit opium from which mor-
phine 'base, morphine and
eventually heroin are derived.
For more details on the
CiA's complicity in the heroin
mess, one might consult an
article entitled "Flowers of
Evil" by historian Alfred W.
McCoy, in the July issue of
Ilarper's magazine. Part of a
forthcoming book called "The
Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia," the article spells out in
detail how Vag Pao, long the
leader of a CIA secret army in
Laos, has become even more
deeply involved in the drug
traffic and what role this traf-
fic has played in the importa-
tion of heorin into the United
States and its use by our
troops in South Vietnam.
Writes McCoy of the situa-
tion: "As a result of direct and
indirect American involve-
ment, opium production has
steadily increased, high-grade
heroin production is flourish-
ing and the Golden Triangle's
poppy fields have become
linked to markets in Europe
and the U.S."
The CIA went away from the
San Francisco meeting with a
gold medal and, no doubt, a
good many doctors who saw
the exhibit went away im-
pressed. Some of them proba-
bly learned for the first time
what pot smells like.
But for others there was a
bitter incongruity in the gov.
ernment's super-secret spy
arm winning a medal for an
exhibit on the horrors of drug
abuse. To some it was a little
like the Mafia getting a top
award for a display of the
evils of extortion, prostitution
and gambling - and a few of
the more socially aware physi-
cians present did not hesitate
to say so.
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