http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/servicemen-to-get-pay-out-over-
lsd-tests

Servicemen to get pay out over LSD tests

Friday, February 24th, 2006

Britain has agreed to pay compensation to three servicemen given the
mind-altering drug LSD during tests in the 1950s, the government said
on Friday.

The Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, commissioned
the experiments fearing that the Soviet Union was developing a secret
substance to brainwash its enemies and force prisoners to make
confessions with a truth drug.

The tests were carried out by scientists at Porton Down, the
government's chemical and biological weapons research laboratory, in
1953 and 1954 during the height of the Cold War.

The men who took part in the tests claimed they were duped into
taking the LSD, thinking they were taking part in research to find a
cure for colds.

Don Webb, one of the volunteers who received an extra week's pay for
the tests, said he and a colleague began to hallucinate after being
given a clear liquid to drink.

"His face melted and opened so that I could swear that I could see
his skull beneath the skin," he told BBC radio.

"The walls and floor of the room seemed to be covered by a clear
liquid that was moving about and writhing.

"I was surrounded by a cell of moving writhing things inside an
ordinary room."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office, which deals with MI6 inquiries,
denied the men had been misled.

"Settlement offers were made on behalf of the three claimants and on
legal advice … the government thought it was appropriate to accept,"
he said.

"They weren't duped into taking the tests. It's history: no one knows
precisely what happened 52 years ago."

The amounts paid to the men have not been disclosed but the BBC said
they were thought to be less than 10,000 pounds each.

"I think they have grudgingly acknowledged they did something wrong,"
Webb said. "I think that's as near to an apology or an explanation as
I'll get."

The LSD case comes after an inquest in 2004 ruled that a serviceman
who died during experiments at Porton Down to test the effect of the
lethal nerve gas sarin had been unlawfully killed by the Ministry of
Defence.