CIA secretly pushed LSD and marijuana on unsuspecting public

A Senate hearing in 1977 disclosed an atrocious and frightening government project that began with experimentation on hallucinogenic drugs in the 1950s and 1960s.  The efforts culminated in operation "Midnight Climax." (This is not a joke, see the story in Time.)

Operation Midnight Climax was a CIA project taking place between 1954 and 1963 that sought to study hallucinogenic drugs and mind control.  The CIA paid women who moonlighted as prostitutes $100 for each assignment, and directed them to feed unsuspecting men LSD or marijuana.  CIA agents stood by to view and record the results through two-way mirrors and tape recording.  

The name of the operation itself is an indication of the juvenile, irresponsible and unaccountable nature of the government in that the name is a joke - a bad one at that - and reflects the government's utter and despicable failure to take taxpayer money and innocent people seriously. The CIA was feeding drugs to unsuspecting members of the public with no consideration of consequences, human rights, or ethics, and then had the gall and bad taste to name the project something vulgar and puerile.

This is an interesting reminder that one never knows exactly what the government is doing, or funding.  Even more interesting is how absent this small event is in American history and the collective memory of the public.

Operation Midnight Climax also brings to mind the Pentagon Papers, another case of government deception and coverups that were not revealed until years later, and not until it was too late.

The CIA is alleged to be one of the most prestigious agencies of the federal government, and yet it proves itself to be dangerously irresponsible and frivolous.  No reasonable person would think it is acceptable to test hallucinogenic drugs on unsuspecting members of the public in a covert manner.  Yet, not a single person in the Central Idiocy Agency had a second thought about this project until decades later.

Midnight Climax was been kept a secret from the public for about 3 decades.  This is evidence of government waste, corruption, and lack of transparency.  

It might be tempting to argue that this is an isolated, freak incident.  However, the alternative, and more likely possibility is that it is only freakish in that it was finally disclosed - there could be millions of other dirty little projects that the public will never know about because they are better guarded secrets.  The public can't complain if it doesn't know.

The hypocrisies involved in this project are obvious.  Prostitution is tolerated by the government when it serves its purposes, but when prostitution is irrelevant to government purposes, it continues to be a crime for which one can be locked behind bars.

And of course, the same federal government that has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars in the War on Drugs is the same government that instituted Operation Midnight Climax and pushed LSD and marijuana on random people in the streets to study the effects of brainwashing.

Sure, marijuana is relatively harmless, but LSD is not.  Further, the idea that a government can and will test drugs on uninformed civilians is absolutely terrifying.  Even when people voluntarily decide to be test subjects of certain medications and drugs, there are all kinds of waivers and disclosures required.  There is no way private pharmaceutical companies would be able to secretly test drugs on civilians; the government equally has no right.

Operation Midnight Climax may seem like a distant memory now, but it is very likely that 30 years from today, the public again will find out about some horrible, secret operation the government was engaged in 30 years ago.