Word: dan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...With reporting by Dan Cray/Los Angeles
TRAN KHUONG DAN Seeking a durable cure for opium addiction by becoming an addict himself...
Tran Khuong Dan, a construction foreman from Hanoi, was shocked when, in 1975, he finally saw his elder brother in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) after a 21-year separation prolonged by the Vietnam War. Gaunt and pale, the brother displayed symptoms that were all too familiar to Dan. The brother, like their father, was addicted to opium. "All around me," says Dan, "there were drug addicts." The habit eventually led to his father's death in 1976 and his brother's the following year...
Despite their addiction, both men had practiced traditional herbal medicine and had prescribed remedies for thousands of patients. With the knowledge passed down from his father, Dan built himself a thriving practice in Ho Chi Minh City, eventually accumulating some $75,000. But one question continued to nag him about his brother's and father's deaths: "Why didn't they find a medicine to cure themselves...
...Dan then set out on a cross-Vietnam journey with a single goal: to find a cure for opium addiction. He collected more than 100 herbal potions that villagers substituted for opium when their poppy crops failed and their supplies dwindled. Eventually, he decided on a drastic step: to addict himself to opium and experiment on himself. "I knew from my brother how dangerous this could be," he says, "but I decided this was the only...