Harris Isbell was an American pharmacologist and the director of research for the NIMH Addiction Research Center at the Public Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky from 1945 to 1963.
10 Facts About Harris Isbell
2.
Harris Isbell did extensive research on the physical and psychological effects of various drugs on humans.
3.
Harris Isbell was born on June 7,1910, in Arkansas to Francis Taylor Isbell and Celeste Mathews.
4.
Harris Isbell was awarded the US Public Health Service Meritorious Service Award in 1962; Attorney General Robert F Kennedy praised him as "an extraordinarily able director and coordinator of multidisciplinary research" and "an outstanding investigator in his own right whose work in clinical pharmacology has exerted far-reaching influences on medical practice".
5.
The subjects in Harris Isbell's experiments are described as "volunteers"; they were recruited from the associated Lexington Public Health Service Hospital.
6.
Harris Isbell investigated dosage effects of THC, and reported that low doses produced a pleasurable state ; this dosage was described by subjects as "good reefer".
7.
Harris Isbell commented on the potency of street marijuana of that time.
8.
Harris Isbell provides a liberal view of drug policy.
9.
Harris Isbell observes that the drug laws of the time are "excessively rigid and extremely punitive", and have not had any proven effect on the drug problem.
10.
However, Harris Isbell rejected removing controls on marijuana, which would "open the way to more potent stuff" such as hashish, with the consequent risk of high-dose effects.