IN DEPTH: DRUGS TRADE - VIETNAM'S DRUGS AND AIDS EPIDEMIC

Ho Chi Minh City has an estimated 20,000 drug users By BBC News
Online's Mangai Balasegaram

The Hy Vong Cafe (Cafe Hope) is one of Ho Chi Minh City's most unusual
coffee shops.

Not only can you get a cup of coffee, you can also pick up free
condoms, and needles to inject heroin.

Every day, a few hundred people drop in and 600 clean needles are
given out.

Former drug injectors provide peer support and information about HIV,
the virus that causes Aids.

The authorities do not just approve - they partially fund the cafe,
which is housed in a public building.

"We did have a lot of problems with the police and government," said
Dr Le Thuy Lan Thao of the city's Aids Committee.

"But we had many meetings to persuade them, and now, it's finally
OK."

The programme has helped remove seedy "shooting galleries" where a
"professional" injector would use the same dirty needle on dozens of
drug users.

The city also has another similar cafe and two more are being
planned.

High priority

As Vietnam celebrates 25 years since the end of the war with the
United States, it is redoubling its efforts to reduce prostitution and
drug abuse, which are tied inextricably to its Aids epidemic.

"They're extremely alarmed about the situation," said Jamie Uhrig, a
United Nations consultant and an adviser on Aids to the Vietnamese
Government.

"Drug use now has the highest priority [among] social
problems."

The concern has even led to the Communist Party's Youth Cultural
Centre in Ho Chi Minh City offering free condoms on tables in its cafe.

"What young people see from that is that here's the state, here's the
party, saying this is OK. That has a huge propaganda impact," Mr Uhrig
said.

Teenage addiction

The Asian Harm Reduction Network, which works on HIV prevention among
drug users, estimates as many as 200,000 Vietnamese use opiate drugs,
and of them, 50,000 inject heroin.

In Ho Chi Minh City alone, an estimated 20,000 people use drugs, said
Dr Thao.

"Most of them are young. Some are just 15 or 16 years old," she
said.

"They start by smoking [heroin]. When they don't have enough money,
they start injecting."

The UN's Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) has said about 75 per cent of
all identified drug users in the country are under 23.

About two thirds of the 18,000 Vietnamese known to have HIV are drug
users. Aids experts have estimated that by the year's end, up to
250,000 may carry the virus.

Rite of passage

The country's proximity to drug-producing areas means the problem is
unlikely to disappear.

"Vietnam is on a major heroin trafficking route and heroin always
leaks off the pipeline. That's the push reason," explained Mr Uhrig.

"The pull reason? Unemployment. The collapse of a social system that
had control on people's behaviour."

Mr Uhrig said heroin was "extremely available" in the north. "I
suspect that among young men, it has become a rite of passage."

With few drug treatment programmes available, the relapse rate among
addicts is very high.

A lack of funds is also a key factor hampering the government's
efforts.

Money is also what lures people into the trade.

"All you have to do to get a lot of money is transport drugs to
another city," said Aaron Peak, a UNDCP consultant and former adviser
to the Vietnamese Government.

He explained that a kilo of heroin worth $3,000 in Burma rose to
$6,000 in Laos and then $7,000 as it crossed the border to Vietnam's
Ky Son district.

"Take it to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City and you can get $14,000."