Federal programs gave addicts street drugs
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
March 26, 2009
The federal government is giving crack and powder cocaine, morphine, and other hard-core drugs to taxpayer-funded researchers for testing on addicts, The Examiner has learned.
For decades, the government has authorized, funded and lobbied for studies in which otherwise illegal drugs were given to addicts in cities such as Washington, Bethesda, Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis and San Antonio. The studies continue today and have an array of aims, from documenting the ways cocaine warps the brain to the intensity of pain from morphine withdrawal.
Government records obtained by The Examiner show that the researchers gave test subjects:
- Morphine at the Veterans Administration in D.C.
- Cocaine injections at the U.S. military’s Uniformed Services University in Bethesda.
- Crack cocaine in several major cities.
Most government officials are not aware of the experiments, even though they have been going on since at least the 1970s.
But at least one former cabinet member found out about them and wants them stopped.
Government Drug Experiments |
In July 2008, Walters wrote a letter to Michael O. Leavitt, then secretary of health and human services. In that letter, obtained by The Examiner, Walters said that finding treatments for addictions was a “compelling” goal.
“But what are their proper limits?” Walters wrote.
He still hasn’t gotten a response.
“Most people see the things that people will do to themselves when they’re addicted — what they’ll do to themselves, to their families, to their loved ones,” Walters told The Examiner. “I think that when you bring someone in and say, ‘Well, they’re not seeking treatment yet and therefore it’s OK to use them as an experimental subject’ — that’s not the understanding that the current science gives us about this disease.”
The subjects of the tests signed consent forms before engaging in the studies and were paid.
Most of the studies have been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a government agency based in Washington that is part of the National Institutes of Health. Officials there declined to be interviewed for this story and have not responded to requests for documents relating to the studies. Records show the studies date back to at least 1979.
“NIDA issues grants to researchers all over the country and even many parts of the world,” spokeswoman Stephanie Older wrote in an e-mail. “Although all ... grantees must follow strict human subjects research guidelines, they do conduct their own independent research.”
Critics such as Walters worry that scientists are victimizing people who can’t say no.
Drug addiction is a powerful biochemical force. Studies have shown cocaine, for instance, can warp the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which governs a person’s reasoning and judgment.
“What the critics seem to be implying is that because there’s addiction, there’s coercion,” said Kathleen Neill, a bioethicist with Georgetown University Medical Center. “This has brought up all kinds of ethical concerns, but that’s not to say there isn’t an answer to them.”
Former drug addict Jesse Washington knows what his answer would be. Next month, he’ll have been clean and sober for 20 years. He still remembers acutely what it was like to wait eagerly for new kinds of cocaine, heroin and mescaline the way some collectors wait for “new cars off the line.”
“I was always trying to find a safe way to do it. There’s not,” said Washington, who now counsels addicts at Samaritan Inns, a D.C. halfway house. “But [a study] would have given me an opportunity where I could have talked myself into it and said, ‘These people are trying to help me out. Maybe we can make it [drug abuse] work this time.’ ”
Researchers interviewed by The Examiner say that their NIDA-funded work on drug addicts has yielded powerful insights into the disease.
“Sometime in the fall we’re going to begin a clinical trial on a cocaine vaccine,” said Dr. Herbert Kleber, a Columbia University researcher. “It’s a fascinating kind of research.”
Among the findings from clinical trials, for instance, were brain images taken by Johns Hopkins researchers that showed what cocaine can do to the brain. That’s led to new worlds of understanding on addiction, experts say.
“The question is whether the results justify using these individuals as disposable subjects,” Walters said.
Dr. Suena Massey is a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University who specializes in treating addiction. She says that research involving vulnerable people — such as the mentally ill or drug addicts — always challenges a scientist to find the ethical way of studying serious problems.
“There’s definitely the potential of an ethical dilemma with doing a study that appeals to a vulnerability such as addiction,” Massey said. “Having said that, I think the capacity for informed consent can and should be made on a case-by-case basis.”
Ex-drug czar Walters says he’s willing to be convinced.
“I’m trying to listen to the best science possible. But I haven’t gotten an answer,” he said. “It’s all the bureaucracy protecting itself here on the grounds that the scientists know best. It’s not a trivial matter.”
According to NIDA’s Web site, researchers in New York still are looking for “volunteers.”
