The Federal Medical Center in Lexington has a fairly simple purpose — it’s a facility used to treat seriously ill people who are imprisoned by the federal government.
Its intended use when it opened in May 1935 was far different: the 12,000 square foot government facility constructed in Fayette County, and known at the time as the Narcotic Farm, was America’s first drug rehab facility. The facility that now houses nearly 1,300 male and female offenders was a place for researching how drugs affect humans. It was the first facility of its kind to implement rehab treatment efforts.
The Narcotic Farm, also informally known as Narco, was operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Public Health. A second, smaller facility opened in Forth Worth, Texas. Both eventually offered a space for the United States to be innovative in its approach to drug addiction through treatment and research.
It also became a place for the government to give drugs to people, including LSD, during experiments performed for the CIA. Then the war on drugs made addiction a criminal issue, not a medical one. More than 80 years after the facility opened, the U.S. still grapples with issues it thought the Narco Farm would solve.