Be Outraged!!!! Secret illegal drug experiments on people in the U.S!

Given the history of secret government experiments on Americans, this story comes as no surprise to me. The real question at hand is whether it's ethical for the government to conduct these experiments in the so-called "name of science?"

Supposedly the people who participate in receiving illegal drugs for experimentation sign consents. Are you serious?

How can a drug addict give informed consent to participate in a study? Are they really of sound mind and judgment to make that call?

The bottom line is that the government sees these addicts as expendable, which allows them to justify this practice:

"The federal government is giving crack and powder cocaine, morphine, and other hard-core drugs to taxpayer-funded researchers for testing on addicts, The Examiner has learned.

For decades, the government has authorized, funded and lobbied for studies in which otherwise illegal drugs were given to addicts in cities such as Washington, Bethesda, Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis and San Antonio. The studies continue today and have an array of aims, from documenting the ways cocaine warps the brain to the intensity of pain from morphine withdrawal.

Government records obtained by The Examiner show that the researchers gave test subjects:

* Morphine at the Veterans Administration in D.C.
* Cocaine injections at the U.S. military’s Uniformed Services University in Bethesda.
* Crack cocaine in several major cities.

Most government officials are not aware of the experiments, even though they have been going on since at least the 1970s. [...]

The subjects of the tests signed consent forms before engaging in the studies and were paid.

Most of the studies have been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a government agency based in Washington that is part of the National Institutes of Health. Officials there declined to be interviewed for this story and have not responded to requests for documents relating to the studies. Records show the studies date back to at least 1979.[...]

“The question is whether the results justify using these individuals as disposable subjects,” Walters said. [...]

According to NIDA’s Web site, researchers in New York still are looking for “volunteers.”" Source: The Examiner

Do you think that the government should be giving people illicit drugs in the name of scientific research?