Drug profiling: a new scientific contribution to law enforcement operations in Viet Nam.

Since 1995 heroin sample comparisons have been carried out in Viet Nam to establish links between wholesalers and retailers. To that end, the physical and chemical characteristics of samples are analysed: their colour, the packaging material, including fingerprints, diacetylmorphine (heroin) content and the composition of some main alkaloids. At the beginning of 2002, having acquired expertise on impurity profiling and with the support of new instruments, the Institute of Forensic Sciences of Viet Nam introduced the routine impurity profiling of seized heroin and methamphetamine and later undertook to explain that process to national law enforcement bodies.