Re: [news] Vietnamese herbs as addiction therapy

[Tuan V Nguyen <t.nguyen@garvan.unsw.edu.au>]

Hello friends,

        I found the following news very interesting.

At 07:05 PM 6/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- U.N. officials announced today they will fund
>a study of a promising Vietnamese herbal anti-drug therapy, which may
>offer a cheap and effective way to ease addicts from their habits. 
>
>The $400,000 project, which ultimately could expand to include clinical
      ^^^^^^^
>trials in the United States, would examine the potential of Heantos, a
>blend of 13 plants found in abundance in Vietnam. In a two-year study in
>Vietnam, 95 percent of the more than 300 heroin addicts treated with
>Heantos remained drug-free. 

        This is a large amount of money!!! The US do not normally give money
to overseas research, yet they do in this case, showing how important the
project is. The results (93%) are indeed impressive. If it is true then the
Vietnamese scientist has made a major breakthrough in drug research. This
would make the methadone project in Australia looks like a joke!

>Heantos was developed in the early 1980s by Dr. Tran Khuong Dan, a
>scientist and herbalist with the Vietnam National Center for Natural
>Science and Technology. Dan was motivated both by the local drug problem
>in Ho Chi Minh City and by the fact that his father and his brother each
>suffered from opium addiction for more than 27 years. 

        Great work! The results should be published in PROMINENT journals
such as SCIENCE or NATURE. 


        Tuan