UN Testing New Opiate Addiction Treatment Developed by Vietnamese Doctor

TREATMENT September-October 1997

Tran Khuong Dan, a physician from Vietnam, claims he has found a cure for addiction to heroin, cocaine, opium and other substances. His observations of the addictions of his father, brother, and war veterans in Saigon prompted him to find an answer in traditional herbal remedies. He had lived among the tribal groups in northern Vietnam where opium had been grown in those communities for decades. There is where Dan created Heantos, a fiery-tasting brown syrup he believes can cure addictions (Adrian Edwards, "Vietnam doctor uses herbs to fight drugs," Reuter, August 18, 1997).

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced in June it was stepping up testing of Heantos. Roy Morey, UNDP's Washington Director, told a news conference that the medicine had already been tested on 3000 Vietnamese addicts, and it was highly successful with only a 30 percent rate of re-addiction and minimal side-effects. Additional studies of Heantos by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and the Vietnamese government are currently underway.