Addiction Research Center

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Addiction Research Center (ARC) is a U.S. center for addiction research founded in 1935. It was located in Lexington, Kentucky, on the campus of the Public Health Service Hospital and shared the site with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Research volunteers were drawn from felons convicted of drug offenses. Dr. Harris Isbell was the Director of Research from 1945 to 1963. In 1974, ARC became part of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The clinical research unit moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1979 and the basic science unit in 1984.

ARC’s work is documented in two books published in 1978, which are available online. In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA funded studies at ARC under the MKUltra program to explore psychoactive substances for interrogation and mind control. Inmates, often from marginalized groups, were given LSD and other drugs without informed consent, raising ethical concerns. Sidney Gottlieb, who led MKUltra from 1953 to 1973, oversaw these ARC experiments, which led to lawsuits from victims.