Harris Isbell

<p>Dr. Harris Isbell, whose work the CIA funded through Navy

cover with the approval of the Director of the National Institutes

of Health, published his principal findings, but he did not

mention how he obtained his subjects. As Director of the Addiction

Research Center at the huge Federal drug hospital in Lexington,

Kentucky, he had access to a literally captive population.

Inmates heard on the grapevine that if they volunteered

for Isbell's program, they would be rewarded either in the drug

of their choice or in time off from their sentences. Most of the

addicts chose drugs—usually heroin or morphine of a purity

seldom seen on the street. The subjects signed an approval

form, but they were not told the names of the experimental

drugs or the probable effects. This mattered little, since the

"volunteers" probably would have granted their informed consent

to virtually anything to get hard drugs.

Given Isbell's almost unlimited supply of subjects, TSS officials

used the Lexington facility as a place to make quick tests

of promising but untried drugs and to perform specialized experiments

they could not easily duplicate elsewhere. For instance,

Isbell did one study for which it would have been impossible

to attract student volunteers. He kept seven men on

LSD for 77 straight days.*</p>

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John Marks Manchurian Candidate</p>