Building a History: Unethical Research on Black Men in Lexington, Kentucky

💡 What does research abuse mean?

Research abuse occurs when participants are exploited, harmed, or targeted because of their vulnerability — often without full consent or ethical safeguards.

Historically, this has included:
⚠️ Targeting incarcerated or institutionalized people
⚠️ Withholding crucial information about risks
⚠️ Using addictive or harmful substances without informed consent
⚠️ Disproportionately experimenting on marginalized communities

Understanding this history is essential for building ethical, culturally aware research today.

🖤 Join our Virtual Listening Circles to share your story or family history connected to the ARC/NIDA in Lexington, KY.
📅 Sign up -link in bio

🧠 What Was MK-Ultra? And Why Should We Still Care?

Between 1953–1973, the CIA secretly funded L*D and psychedelic experiments under Project MK-Ultra, targeting people considered “vulnerable”: psychiatric patients, incarcerated individuals, and disproportionately Black men at the ARC in Lexington, Kentucky.

📍At the Addiction Research Center (ARC):

Over 66% of study participants were Black, even though Black residents made up only 7% of Kentucky’s population at the time.

Black participants were given higher doses of L*D for longer periods — up to 85 consecutive days.

Prisoners were offered heroin or reduced sentences in exchange for participation — a clear case of undue influence.

Many were not informed they were part of CIA-funded studies.

This legacy has left deep scars in communities like Lexington — and it’s time we listen.

🎙️✨ We're holding Virtual Listening Circles to honor Black voices in Lexington and understand how this trauma lives on.

🔗 Want to support or share your story?
Sign up at the link in bio to join our ARC/NIDA project or just to listen and learn.

✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 This work is about truth, healing, and justice.

❓What happens when a community's history is buried—on purpose?

At the ARC (Addiction Research Center) in Lexington, KY, hundreds of Black men were unknowingly part of high-dose psychedelic drug experiments—while incarcerated.

These weren’t healing journeys.
They were non-consensual government studies tied to Cold War mind control programs like MK-Ultra.

The victims? Forgotten.
The records? Hidden.
The truth? Long overdue.

🧱   is our effort to uncover what really happened—from the people who lived it, saw it, and still carry the impact today.

Through community-based participatory research, we are:
🎙️ Hosting listening circles
📜 Recording oral histories
🔍 Examining federal archives
💬 Talking directly with Lexington residents—elders, families, descendants

This isn’t just research—it’s truth-telling for justice.

📢 We’re still listening.
If you or someone you know has a connection to this story—join us.
🔗 Link in bio to sign up for a session, share your story, or learn more.

📍Lexington, KY — you showed up, showed out, and showed us just how deep your wisdom runs. From East End to West End to the Northside, we’re still basking in the warmth and truth y’all shared with us 💬✨

We met educators, elders, healers, mothers, brothers, and storytellers who helped bring history into the light. But trust us — the research isn’t over yet. We STILL want to talk with you. Yes, you 👀

This work continues ✊🏾✊🏽✊🏿 The research continues.

And WE STILL WANT TO TALK TO YOU 🗣️‼️ That’s right — if you’re a Lexington local and haven’t joined a listening circle yet, there’s still time. We’re now offering virtual sessions, and we want to hear your truth.

📲🔗 link in our bio to sign up — We know Lexington has more to say, and we’re ready to listen.

🧬 TRAUMA DOESN’T END WITH ONE GENERATION
When Black men and other marginalized groups were experimented on at places like the ARC under MK Ultra, the harm didn’t stay in the past.

Unethical psychedelic research has left deep scars that echo across generations—and still influence how communities of color relate to therapy, medicine, and institutions today.

💔 Here’s what that legacy looks like:
🔸 Intergenerational trauma—passed through families, bodies, and nervous systems
🔸 Persistent medical mistrust rooted in historical abuse
🔸 Barriers to seeking mental health care or participating in research
🔸 Emotional avoidance, hypervigilance, and internalized shame
🔸 Exclusion from “healing spaces” that don’t acknowledge this history

This isn’t just historical trauma—it’s ongoing, racialized harm that continues to shape how people of color navigate the world, especially within psychedelic therapy and mental health fields.

We must ask:
🧠 What does healing look like when the harm was never acknowledged?
🛠️ What must we repair before asking people to trust again?

📢 Our series continues with Part 2: where we explore community-led research, justice-centered practices, and BIPOC-led pathways to healing.

🔗 Learn more in bio

✊🏾

📍Lexington, KY- FIND US AT THE KICKBACK - 5-9PM

📍Lexington, KY- 🔗 IN BIO TO SIGN UP ‼️

📍All weekend, , , and will be hosting LISTENING CIRCLES.

🔺From the 1940s-1970s, Black men and other POC were exploited in unethical research studies.
🔺NOW is the time for us to remember & connect to unveil this hidden history

🔹Have you heard of the "Narcotic Farm"?
🔹How have these studies impacted the Lexington community?

"If we don't share our stories, we'll forget them" -

JOIN US, DM US, FOLLOW US 📨💪🏾 to learn more ❗

Have you heard of the "Narcotic Farm"? Get $75 + Free PEACH COBBLER 🍑🍧✊🏾

🔺Are you 18+?
🔺Located in Lexington, KY?
🔺Have you heard of the "Narcotic Farm" or the "Addictions Research Center"❓

We are a group of Black researchers hosting Listening circles in Lexington, KY to talk about the personal, community, and social impact left behind by the studies at the Narcotic Farm/the Addictions Research Center ‼️

All this weekend, we'll be in town - find us, our flyers, or contact us BELOW TO LEARN MORE:

EMAIL US 📨
[email protected]
[email protected]

OR

🔗 in BIO TO SIGN UP ‼️

HEY, Kentucky❗Today we are traveling around Lexington, KY (over 15+stops) to connect with local stakeholders, community centers, and leaders🫂✊🏾‼️

Keep an eye out for our flyers, we're looking for YOU TO JOIN OUR LISTENING CIRCLES ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾

& wish us good LUCK IN THE COMMENTS 🍀🍀🍀👑

HEY LEXINGTON‼️ We are in TOWN 🌟

We are a group of Black researchers doing Community-Based Participatory Research, which means, we want to involve you!

Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is about research that uplifts communities, not extracts from them.

Here’s what makes CBPR different:
👥 Involves community members at every stage
📚 Values local knowledge, lived experience, and collective insight
🤝 Builds trust and shares power between researchers and communities

CBPR is essential for ethical, inclusive, and justice-centered research — especially in fields like psychedelic science. 🤎✊🏾

🔍 What Happened at the ARC?
Between 1947–1974, incarcerated Black men at the Addictions Research Center (ARC) in Lexington, KY were subjected to unethical psychedelic experiments under the CIA’s MK-Ultra project.

⚠️ Key facts:
🧪 L*D and other psychedelics were given without informed consent
📈 Doses reached up to 180 micrograms daily for over 85 days
⚖️ Black participants were subjected to more intense and prolonged exposure than White participants
📝 Researchers wrote about their suffering with clinical detachment and dehumanizing language
⛓️ Some were restrained after begging to stop — leaving lasting psychological trauma

📚 This dark chapter of research history must be remembered — not just to honor those harmed, but to ensure it never happens again.

🧠 Let’s talk about ethics, consent, and racial injustice in psychedelic science.
📲 Follow on Instagram to learn more about how we can honor truth, accountability, and ancestral healing.

For many clinicians and researchers, psychedelic‑assisted therapy (from M**A to psilocybin) looks like a breakthrough for trauma that resists conventional care. But for communities of color—whose members were exploited in Cold‑War drug experiments at places like the Addiction Research Center in Lexington—the very word psychedelics also carries a legacy of deception, racialized risk, and mistrust. This interactive MeetUp puts both realities on the table. We’ll unpack the strongest clinical evidence showing how carefully guided psychedelic sessions can reduce PTSD symptoms rooted in racism, while also confronting the ethical blind spots that arise when historically marginalized people enter a rapidly commercializing field. What does “set and setting” mean when the setting itself is systemically unequal? How do we weigh the promise of neuroplasticity against the danger of cultural appropriation or, worse yet, retraumatization?

Join Canada Research Chair Dr. Monnica Williams and invited guests— community advocate Sheldomar Elliott, psychotherapist Lianna Tullis‑Robinson, MA, and psychedelic researcher Sara Reed—for a lively, evidence‑based discussion that centers BIPOC perspectives. Together we’ll review current trial data, share lived‑experience testimonies, and brainstorm safeguards that move the field from extractive to restorative. Whether you’re a clinician, scholar, wellness professional, or simply curious about the intersection of mental health, race, and altered states, come add your voice as we ask the hard question: can psychedelics truly heal racial trauma, and if so, under what conditions?

Register using the link here!

Psychedelics: Helpful or Harmful for Racial Trauma?, Thu, May 29, 2025, 12:00 PM | Meetup For many clinicians and researchers, psychedelic‑assisted therapy (from M**A to psilocybin) looks like a breakthrough for trauma that resists conventional care. But for com