Weird Science Continues! Cocaine Research at Mass General
On a fairly frequent basis last year, technicians at Massachusetts General Hospital injected 40 milligrams of cocaine directly into the bloodstream of cocaine addicts. With a set of defibrillators kept handy in case of cardiac arrest, the addicts were given MRIs and monitored for changes in heart rate and blood pressure. The subjects walked out of the hospital with some information on drug addiction, their anonymity and a gift certificate for $260 to a supermarket in exchange for a promise not to use any more cocaine that day.
Hans W. Breiter, the assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who ran the tests as part of research on the physiological effects of cocaine, had to clear a number of bureaucratic hurdles in order to administer the drug in his lab. Researchers who work with illegal narcotics must receive approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for a grant of exemption from prosecution for the possession, distribution and dispensing of controlled substances. Once granted immunity from the law, researchers are free to inject narcotics into rats, rabbits and other small woodland animals to their heart’s content.
It is legal for a researcher to dispense cocaine, for example, to humans with this license, though the subjects could be prosecuted for accepting it. The transition from furry creatures to humans, then, takes another application to the DEA—a petition requesting permission to maintain the anonymity of the research subjects so they cannot be prosecuted for their participation.
In addition to extensive legal protection offered to subjects, exhaustive health safety measures were also taken by Breiter and his colleagues. “The number of safety measures you have to take is beyond imagination,” says Breiter, who had to design an extensive emergency protocol and have a psychiatrist and a cardiologist present whenever administering cocaine. “It looks like we’re sending an astronaut into space,” he jokes. And with good reason. Breiter’s studies involved injecting up to 40mg of “government grade” cocaine (“the stuff that the government approves for sale for research,” he explains) into each subject. An enormous dose for non-users, 40mg is about mid-range for most addicts. Breiter says that though the addicts “all got high off [the 40mg], it’s less than some street doses because when most addicts buy cocaine they use it all in one sitting. Very few users say, ‘Look! I bought a big rock and I just broke off a corner.’”
After the study, many addicts accepted an offer for free therapy. Because the study involved more extensive medical examination than any of the addicts ever had, many realized they were in good health, aside from being addicted to cocaine. ”We had people say, ‘Wow. Why am I still doing cocaine?’” Breiter says. Nine months later, Breiter says, a significant portion of the subjects had lowered or terminated their cocaine use.
Forty milligrams and $260 at Star Market may sound much better than $10 and a candy bar that the psychology department awards students who participate in those ubiquitous studies, but unfortunately, researchers only accept addicts as subjects.