Were Tim Leary's experiments in Harvard ethical?

Hi all, i'm an IB student in Mexico and i'm doing a presentation about this. So, any opinions are anything? I think that in a way they were ethical because it gave medicinal purposes, i'm not looking for answes like "ethical maan, there's nothing wrong with acid" or anything like that. Please, any help appreciated, thank you in advanced.

 

His experiments with psilocybin were legal and given the go ahead by harvard. And yes the experiments had good intentions and we gained a lot of knoledge about psiloybin.
Leary held sessions where his psychology students would volunteer to take psilocybin in a controlled enviroment. However Leary preassured some of the students who did not want to take psilocybin to take it, saying that if they wanted to keep up with modern psychology and be a good psychologist then they had to take it. This upsetted some of the students.

Leary also held controlled lsd sessions at his house, and the line between experimentation and recreation faded.
So I think for your presentation you should focus more on his early experiments with psilocybin rather than lsd.

"None of Dr. Leary's most important studies have either suffered refutation or enjoyed confirmation, because enacted law, statues enacted after and because of Dr. Leary's research - makes it a crime for any other psychologists or psychiatrists to replicate such research. I know you've heard that the Inquisition ended in 1819, but in many areas of psychotherapy and medicine, the U.S. government has taken up where the Vatican left off." -Robert Anton Wilson

 

But they really were ethical man. There's nothing wrong with acid.

 

Mm theres no question about it, it is ethical to take drugs because it is a personal decision and it helps if you have information on the drugs you are taking.

Another point I would like to raise is Leary emphasised the proper use of these psychedelics, he stressed the importance in set and setting when going into a trip- He said trips should be done in a peaceful enviroment where one is comfortable.
This was important because many other people of the psychedelic movement- notably the Merry pranksters, said lsd should be taken at a wild party where anything can happen, they used the drug for fun and held acid tests spiking everything (including door handles) with lsd.

 

I don't see why they wouldn't be, they were legitamite experiemnts on a legal chemical to observe its effects

 

I think more detail on where he started to coerce or cajole are important for peopel to make good judgements on whether they were ethical or not.

basically people who are being tested on shouldbe told what they are gettign into and also have teh option to leave at any poitn without consequences.

experiments regardign any mind or body altering drug shoudl always remain teh same and teh fact that LSD wasn't known to be as harmless as it is today means that extra care shoudl have been taken.

and althoughh you dont want it... I'm with Hemisphere on this one. haha!