Introduction

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw Gis returning to the USA from Vietnam in increasing numbers. With Vietnam centred in the drug producing region of SouthEast Asia, the so-called Golden Triangle, recreational drug use had become a way of life for the young soldiers thrown into the horrors of war. As a consequence many of the Gis became addicted or dependent on illicit drugs. Realising they had a major drug problem on their hands, the USA Government set about putting drug screening programmes in place. The techniques available at the time however, being based on solvent extraction of large volumes of biological sample followed by chromatographic analysis, were unsuited to the task of screening massive numbers of samples. It was at this point that the Government invested heavily in the development of immunoassay methods. Finance was provided for companies like Syva and Roche, leading to the development of the RIA for morphine, as a result immunoassay moved from the clinical to the general analytical laboratory beginning its transition into the widely used analytical tool it is today.