What does justice look like when we reflect on harms caused to Black communities?
By Sheldomar Elliott, Lianna Tullis-Robinson, and Monnica Williams
Did you know that Black men were experimented on for decades in search of a mind control drug? From 1947 to 1974, incarcerated Black men and other vulnerable inpatient groups were exploited in research studies held at the Addiction Research Center (ARC) in Lexington, Kentucky. These studies were funded by the CIA for their MK Ultra project in search of a substance that could be useful in warfare to control the mind. Trust us—the research studies are as horrific as they sound—but before we delve into the gritty details of what took place, let’s talk about how a group of Black researchers happened upon this hidden and critically overlooked history of unethical abuse that took place during the first wave of psychedelic science.
The 2019 Lexington Workshop: A Catalyst for Investigation
In 2019, Dr. Monnica Williams organized a two-part workshop and conference in Louisville, Kentucky, for therapists in communities of color, focused on MDMA-assisted therapy and racial trauma training for clinicians. However, there was one problem: no local Black therapists showed up.
Rumours suggested that folks in the Kentucky community were not interested in joining these workshops, as they recalled abusive drug studies that happened decades earlier that left a painful and lasting effect on them and their community. This prompted Dr. Williams, Dana Strauss, Sara Reed, and others to investigate the research abuses that took place at the Addiction Research Center (also known as ARC) in Lexington, Kentucky, from the 1940s to 1970s. Their work uncovered several unethical and brutal experiments performed on Black men and other vulnerable populations under the infamous MK Ultra program (Strauss et al., 2022).
The Addiction Research Center (ARC) and the MK Ultra Project
In the mid-20th century, Lexington was home to ARC, a U.S. public health service facility that later became the National Institute on Drug Addiction (NIDA). It doubled as both a prison and a hospital, where a wide variety of people went for drug rehabilitation.
However, underneath the guise of helping those struggling with addiction, the CIA was secretly using this location as one of more than 80 different places as a testing ground for their new MK Ultra project to develop bioweapons amidst rising tensions during the Cold War era. Through the secret and highly illegal administration of LSD to unwitting individuals, the CIA wanted to learn whether the drugs would result in loss of speech, loss of sensitivity to pain, loss of memory, loss of willpower and ultimately, a substance that would allow them to control and deprogram the mind.
Unequal Harms
When we consider that the total population of people of color in Kentucky was about 14% at the time, but these folks made up over 66% of the experimental population at ARC, we can begin to understand the racial disparities associated with the abuse that had taken place. Participants were often unethically uninformed before being included in horrific trials, subjecting people to experiments with LSD and other drugs. They were never consulted about the drugs or dosages they were being given, forced to endure harrowing pain in environments that were not conducive to their wellbeing, all while being dehumanized and objectified by the researchers and doctors conducting these experiments. Many studies administered psychedelics at levels dangerous even by today’s standards. For example, one study (Isbel et al., 1961) gave Black participants more than double the dose of LSD (180 μg) compared to white participants (75 μg). The white participants underwent just 8 days of LSD administration, but Black participants endured chronic administration of LSD for up to 85 days. One Black participant, after suffering a “very severe” reaction to a high dose, expressed a wish to drop out, but was then pressured by researchers to continue, and then given daily LSD until again receiving 180 μg after three weeks of chronic intoxication (Strauss et al., 2022).
Black participants were deliberately singled out for more hazardous, prolonged, and higher-dose experiments. In one study, all Black subjects not only received higher doses, but also endured much longer exposure and more severe reactions (Monroe et al., 1957). Researchers documented these effects with clinical detachment—reporting on participants’ “toilet habits” and “eroticism” as if they were animals, making no effort to address their suffering or even basic humanity. This detachment extended further, as researchers described one Black participant as “of low intelligence,” thereby justifying their heinous behavior of tying this participant down during LSD administration, even as he begged for relief. Instead of showing compassion, this participant was subjected to the highest and most dangerous combinations of drugs (Monroe et al., 1957; Strauss et al., 2022). Papers detailing these studies and their abuses were published in major scientific journals without any reaction from the scientific community.
Lasting Scars
Without a doubt, the individuals at the ARC were severely abused and suffered lasting impacts of physical, psychological, and emotional trauma that can be felt even today. The testimony of Edward Flowers, a victim of the CIA trials at ARC, illustrates exactly that. He went on record in the ’70s to describe feeling used and taken advantage of, as it was only after congressional hearings that he was able to piece together what happened to him and understand the ARC experiments as exploitative. He expressed many bouts of anger, bitterness, and betrayal, which highlight the lasting impacts of trauma caused by these unethical experiments.
The levels of trauma inflicted on these vulnerable populations are unimaginable—not only from the effects of the substances themselves, but also from the enduring racist and harmful treatment by those from whom they were supposed to receive support. Now is a critical time to ask ourselves: Who is helping to address and mediate the impact of these injustices and resulting intergenerational trauma?
