The Narcotic Farm (2008)

• 77%
• 2008
• Documentary
• J.P. Olsen
• Luke Walden

Former inmates at America's first prison for drug addicts tell a fascinating and previously untold story of jazz, human drug testing and secret CIA research. From 1935 until 1975, just about every American junkie busted for dope went to the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, an ambitious government center dedicated to finding a cure for addiction. It was a unique institution, equal parts federal prison, treatment center, farm, and laboratory. And it became the gathering place for the country's growing drug subculture of street hustlers, drugstore cowboys and even jazz greats such as Chet Baker, Elvin Jones, and Sonny Rollins. But the Narcotic Farm also became the world's center for addiction research. For forty years elite scientists conducted groundbreaking experiments on prisoners, giving massive doses of heroin, cocaine, and other drugs to inmates who eagerly volunteered to get high in the name of science. Today the vivid recollections of former addicts who spent years inside the prison and astonishing, government-produced films bring to life a story of noble intentions and lingering questions. Was the research program ethical? Was it worth it? Who was helped? The inmates themselves come to some surprising conclusions.