Psychedelics in Vietnam: between escape, collapse, and the internal critique of a pointless war

The Vietnam War was not marked only by military defeat, by images of bodies on television or by criticisms from American public opinion. It also became a silent divider in another respect, the massive use of drugs within an official armed force.

It was not something marginal, hidden or sporadic. It was something institutionalized, widespread and, in many cases, encouraged by the military command itself.

A large part of American soldiers entered Vietnam very young. Unaware of why they were there, amidst an unfamiliar territory, facing guerrillas with invisible tactics, the only certain thing was the boredom between missions and the dread of what could happen at any moment. It was in this space, between anxiety and banality, that drugs circulated.

A report from the Department of Defense, published in 1971, revealed that more than half of American military personnel smoked marijuana during service. Another 31% experimented with psychedelics such as LSD, mescaline, and mushrooms.

Almost a third used heroin or cocaine at some point. These numbers did not arise by chance. Marijuana was widely available, sold by local farmers, grown in villages and traded for cigarettes or a few dollars. For many, it was more accessible than drinking water.

Psychedelics, on a smaller scale, were also present. LSD was not produced in Vietnam, but circulated among soldiers connected to the American counterculture, many had already been in contact with the substance before the war. Tablets arrived by mail, or were passed by fellow veterans. Preservation was difficult due to the tropical climate, but the use did not stop. Those who used it claimed to be seeking an "alternative logic", a way to cope with the constant absurdity.

But drug use in Vietnam was not only improvised or individual, it also became institutional policy. Between 1966 and 1969, the American government sent more than 225 million amphetamine pills to keep soldiers active. At the same time, barbiturates and tranquilizers were offered to curb collapses. The math is simple: the rate of mental breakdowns plummeted, not because the trauma was less, but because soldiers were under constant medication.

LSD, specifically, also circulated in the background of the government itself. Since the 1950s, the CIA had been conducting experiments with the substance in programs like the alleged MK-Ultra project, involving soldiers, prisoners, psychiatric patients, and civilians, many without formal consent. The idea was to test LSD as a possible truth serum or interrogation tool. None of the hypotheses proved functional, but the history already showed that the government was well aware of the effects of the substance that would later circulate in the jungles of Vietnam.

With the rise of moral panic in the USA, the Army launched Operation Golden Flow in 1971, a program that required soldiers to undergo urine testing before returning home. Those who tested positive were kept in Vietnamese territory, in forced detoxification centers. The image of young Americans returning addicted could no longer be ignored.

Later studies show that addiction, in most cases, persisted. Drugs were not being used as pleasurable escapes, but as emotional survival in a logic-defying environment.

The use of psychedelics, specifically, generated complex reactions. Some veterans reported that these substances triggered peaks of consciousness, experiences that made them question the war itself.

One of the accounts cited by researchers like Robert Jay Lifton tells of a soldier who, under the influence of LSD, refused to shoot because he felt that the enemy “was just another kid like him.” There was also the opposite, complete collapses, panic attacks, distorted visions of the jungle, and total loss of control over reality. But the central point is this, the use was not recreational. It was a direct result of what the war caused internally.

It is important to remember that, in the United States, the debate about psychedelic drugs was taking a different direction.

Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, the Woodstock generation and the protests against the war saw in LSD a tool for mental opening. A way to break free from militarism, racism, and the alienation imposed by the media. Nixon even classified Leary as “the most dangerous man in America”. And many young people who used LSD before the war saw it as a way to maintain some thread of sanity after they were sent to the jungle, without even understanding the reasons.

It is of utmost importance to emphasize that the war also exposed racial inequality in recruitment. The percentage of Black soldiers sent to Vietnam was disproportionately high compared to their presence in the U.S. population.

At the beginning of the conflict, about 23% of combat soldiers were Black, while the Black population represented only 11% of the country's total. The disparity generated internal criticism and public pressure, leading the government to adjust some of the sending criteria, but the damage was already done.

Vietnam also became a social battleground, where young Black men were placed on the front lines of a war that was not theirs, for a country that still denied them their basic rights.

Today, nearly 60 years later, part of this history returns through scientific research.

Substances like psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA have returned to public debate, now as therapeutic alternatives for severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially among war veterans.

The irony is clear, what was treated as addiction, escape or crime, is now entering supervised clinical protocols. But the past demands its price, and what happened in Vietnam remains a cautionary tale and a subject of study, even for having caused irreversible damage to the country with environmental, social, and health issues that persist to this day.

The use of chemical agents like Agent Orange contaminated soil, water, and entire communities, affecting generations with severe illnesses and altering local biodiversity. The war caused hunger, mass displacement, cultural destruction, and traumas that span decades. Among those who suffered most from all this were the American veterans themselves, especially the Black ones, who were sent in greater proportion than average and returned from a conflict that was never about them.

Because there, in the middle of the jungle, between the noise of the helicopter blades and the heat of 40 degrees, what existed was an army of young Americans confronting something they had not asked for. And drugs, however dangerous they were, offered a rare element in that scenario: control over one's own mind.