From its opening in 1935, the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington epitomized the nation’s ambivalence about how to deal with drug addiction. On one hand, it functioned as a compassionate and humane hospital, an “asylum on the hill” on 1,000 acres of farmland where addicts could recover from their drug habits. On the other hand, it was an imposing federal prison built for the incarceration of drug addicts.
The story of “Narco,” as it was known locally, is explored in The Narcotic Farm, airing Monday, Nov. 3 at 9/8 p.m. CT on KET1.
The facility was a strange anomaly, a co-ed institution where federal convicts did time alongside volunteers who checked themselves in for rehabilitation. Not long after its opening, it became the world’s epicenter for drug treatment and addiction research — and for 40 years it was the gathering place for this country’s growing drug subculture, a rite of passage that initiated famous jazz musicians, drug-abusing MDs, street hustlers and drugstore cowboys into the new fraternal order of the American junkie.
Although it began as a bold and ambitious public works project, Narco was shut down in the 1970s amid changes in drug policy and scandal over its drug-testing program, where hundreds of federal convicts volunteered as human guinea pigs for pioneering drug experiments and were rewarded with heroin and cocaine for their efforts.
The Narcotic Farm tells the compelling story of the institution’s noble rise and tumultuous fall, and includes rare and unpublished photographs, film stills, newspaper and magazine clippings and government documents, as well as anecdotes and recollections from the prisoners, doctors and staff who lived and worked there.
The Narcotic Farm is produced by J . P . Olsen and Luke Walden.
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