Govt. Gives Addicts Drugs For Studies

In a scandalous waste of U.S. tax dollars, the federal government has for at least three decades provided illicit drugs to addicts who participate in publicly financed research studies. 

Official records obtained by a Washington daily reveal that the government gives crack and powder cocaine, morphine and other hardcore drugs to taxpayer-funded researchers conducting tests on addicts. 

The illegal drugs are regularly provided to subjects participating in studies at facilities around the country, including Washington, Maryland, New York, Arizona and Minnesota. The ongoing research aims to document mysteries such as how cocaine warps the brain and pain intensity caused by morphine withdrawal.

Most of the studies have been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services medical research agency, the National Institutes of Health. The research agency’s drug abuse division has provided drug abusers with illegal narcotics since at least 1979, according to the news report.

Researchers claim their controversial, publicly funded work is extremely valuable because it has shed light into the devastating disease of addiction. Among their projects: a study of classical conditioning mechanisms associated with arousal, craving and cocaine use; a study to determine if an anticonvulsant drug decreases cocaine self administration and another to determine the density of brain transporters during prolonged cocaine abuse and during withdrawal.