TREASURY DEPARTMENT

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

 

IN REPLYING | WASHINGTON

ADDRESS THE SURGEON GENERAL
U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
AND REFER TO

PERSONAL

Medical Officer in Charge
U. S. Narcotic Farm,
Lexington, Kentucky.

Dear Dr. Kolb:

Your letter of July 25, 1935, enclosing therewith a memo- _
randum dealing with the "proposed plan for research in drug addiction"
has been received and read with interest. This matter had already
been the subject of discussion and correspondence with the group
making special studies at the United States Penitentiary Annex, Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, before opening the Lexington Nercotic Farm.

I am somewhat afraid of a policy or principle of calling
for volunteers for experimental purposes among the prison group.
Such a policy is fraught with potentialities for good and also for
criticism of the Service. It is my belief, and that of others, that
prisoners are never in a position to make a free-will choice in the
matter of volunteering for experimentél work. Their personal situa-
tion is of such a character that suggestions on the part of officers
in charge serve to coerce them.

Furthermore, the type of person whom you propose to ask
as a volunteer would be of such a constitutional character that if
untoward situations developed or arose, he might be pvleced in a
position of aggrandizement and criticism, and would leave no stone
unturned until he brought discredit in the public eye upon those
who undertook to make him an addict when he had been off the drug
for a period of a year. I can also imagine that some well-meaning
but misguided person outside the institution might take it upon
himself to champion the rights of those “poor downtrodden addicts."
From the standpoint of expediency, I believe you would make a serious
mistake if you call for volunteers in this matter.

In the Act that established the Narcotic Farms, the Service
is directly charged with conducting studies of the nature of drug
addiction and the best methods of treatment and rehabilitation of
persons addicted to habit-forming drugs. It is probable, therefore,
in the course of classifying and grouping your clinical material at
Lexington, that you will find a group of individuals who might be
selected for studies such as you have outlined, with the idea that
such studies would be predicated upon the determination of those
functions outlined above.
Oe -2- . Co :
K : \

It would not be necessary for such persons to know from
first-hand knowledge the exact nature of the studies contemplated
or to be carried on. ‘The selection of individuals for such observa-
tions should be done with great care and with the understanding of
the potential harm which might arise and the criticism which might
develop. Naturally, the period of detention for those selected
should be sufficiently long to warrant undertaking rehabilitation
measures regardless of the hopelessness of the individual situation.

I should, therefore, conduct these studies from the stand-
point of selecting material best suited to accomplish the tims and
ends for which the institution is established, but I think you would
make a mistake if you call for volunteers.

- Sincerely yours,

Ux

Assistant Surgeon Gentral,
Division of Mental Hygiene.

 

WLT/GM