Japan's Weaponized WW2 Opium Cigarettes (ad-free)

That's a great article. I was an Army medic. The four NCOs in the small unit I transferred into in Germany in 1973 were all Vietnam vets from the time period covered by the article, and one of them told me "The first time I did opium, I didn't know it was opium. I just knew it would get me high. I just said 'give me a pack of OJs'." And then he laughed.

Pat Patterson

I was 16 in 1976, in highschool and mostly a "straight arrow", didn't drink and had never used drugs. In the early 1980s I worked alongside several american vietnam veterans and heard hair curling stuff, the things the news didn't tell us, which made me realize just how fucked up things were for them (and still mostly are). I never heard THAT name (OJ) from them, don't think they were using opiates (much) but they did mention that Heroin was everywhere in Vietnam and dirt cheap. None of those guys were ever straight/sober longer than it took to get home from work, they mostly preferred weed to booze, but they'd do ANYTHING rather than be straight. Having to shoot people who visually seemed to be young teenage boys had really fucked them up, let alone the death of whatever beliefs they'd had about truth, justice and the American way and the futility of their personal horror shows plus lots of drugs. They were also the people who taught me it was TOTALLY NORMAL and EXPECTED to smoke dope on your lunch break and then coast through the second half of your working day on autopilot. Vietnam was truly the gift that keeps on giving. In the end, naturally produced SE Asian latex rubber was mostly superseded by improved synthetic rubber elastomar chemistry (Buna S- FTW!), and tin, although remaining fairly valuable wasn't an actual strategic choke point after Vietnam "fell"- Rice and cinnamon were never in such short supply as to cause riots in countries that MATTER. And the Vietnamese industrial capitalists are now subcontracting lots of the more human labor intensive production processes for Chinese factories to keep the prices at my local midwestern USA Walmart stores low, low, low. Banality of evil, anyone? https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/05/archives/gis-and-ojs-in-vietnam-gis-and-ojs-in-vietnam.html

Robert Rowe

Anyone experience OJs in southeast Asia in late 60s, early 70s?

Pat Patterson

No, definitely not! State intelligence couldn't make enough money to bankroll right wing/fascists if that $h¡t were legalized. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/cockburn-white.html

Robert Rowe

Every time I see the author's name I'm reminded of Philip Morris brand cigarettes. 🤔

Paul Beck

golden BAT... the real origin of covid (sarcasm)

david weilbaecher jr

wash it down with some cocaine Coke for a good time 😎

Mrgunsngear

Wow!

don't give lefites baaad ideas about their legalizing BS....

Guido Schriewer