PSYCHOLOGIST, OTTAWA ADMIT GIVING LSD TO TEEN INMATE

1961 Study

OTTAWA - The federal government and a former prison psychologist have
confessed to battery and negligence for giving LSD to a teenage inmate
- -- a drug she says caused brain damage and hallucinations.

The admission by the government and by Mark Eveson, a psychologist, in
Ontario's Superior Court of Justice is a victory for former prisoner
Dorothy Proctor.

LSD was given to 23 prisoners as part of a 1961 study at the federal
Prison for Women in Kingston, Ont. The prison is now closed.

In 1998, Ms. Proctor sued the government and former officials of the
Correctional Service of Canada for giving her the drug, saying it has
caused brain damage and terrifying hallucinations.

Ms. Proctor was 18 and serving a three-year robbery sentence when she
received at least one dose of the powerful hallucinogen. She was given
the drug in a 1.5-metre-by-2.5-metre windowless segregation cell, lit by
a single bulb and containing only a mattress.

The Canadian government says LSD was given to female prisoners with the
aim of "promoting the health of individuals" -- not for experimental
reasons.

However, the government concedes there is no record of Ms. Proctor
having consented to receive the drug.

The lawsuit began a protracted court fight over the nature of the LSD
tests, the ethics of using prisoners in the drug program.

The government and Eveson admitted on April 30 to assault and
negligence, declarations that were accepted by the court in May.

Ms. Proctor is suing for $5-million, though the court has not yet
addressed the issue of damages.

A primary point in Ms. Proctor's suit remains unsettled because the
government does not admit that officials committed a fundamental lapse
in care toward her.

She argues that "as a vulnerable minor and as an inmate," she was
entitled to have the defendants protect her from harm.

She contends that Eveson, who ran the LSD program, and Dr. George Scott,
the prison psychiatrist who oversaw the tests, were "placed in a
position of trust" with her, to the point where she "saw them as father
figures."

In early 1998, a Correctional Service board of inquiry recommended that
Ms. Proctor receive compensation and an apology.

When the government referred the matter to the McGill University Centre
for Medicine, Ethics and Law, Ms. Proctor, who had run out of patience,
went to court.

A subsequent investigation by the Ottawa Citizen and Southam News showed
hundreds of federal inmates were used in scientific experiments during
the 1960s and 1970s. Prisoners took part in trials of untested
pharmaceuticals such as penicillin and anti-stress pills, spent days in
dark cells during sensory deprivation research and received painful
shocks in studies of cigarette smokers.

In a report last May, the McGill centre recommended the government
compensate prisoners subjected to "unethical" experiments.