History of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide - Secret Government Experiments

Secret Government Experiments

The CIA became interested in LSD when they read reports alleging that American prisoners during the Korean War were being brainwashed with the use of some sort of drug or “lie serum.” LSD was the original centerpiece of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's top secret MK-ULTRA project, an ambitious undertaking conducted from the 1950s through the 1970s designed to explore the possibilities of pharmaceutical mind control. Hundreds of participants, including CIA agents, government employees, military personnel, prostitutes, members of the general public, and mental patients were given LSD, many without their knowledge or consent. The experiments often involved severe psychological torture. To guard against outward reactions, doctors conducted experiments in clinics and laboratories where subjects were monitored by EEG machines and had their words recorded. Some studies investigated whether drugs, stress or specific environmental conditions could be used to break prisoners or to induce confessions. The CIA also created The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology which was a CIA funding front which provided grants to social scientists and medical researchers investigating questions of interest related to the MK-ULTRA program. Between 1960 and 1963, the CIA gave $856,782 worth of grants to different organizations. The researchers eventually concluded that LSD's effects were too varied and uncontrollable to make it of any practical use as a truth drug, and the project moved on to other substances. It would be decades before the US government admitted the existence of the project and offered apologies to the families of those who had died during the experiments.