They hate us

From a local research center:

Heroin-dependent volunteers who also use cocaine are needed for an eight-week research study.

The purpose is to study how certain factors, including drug dose, the amount of work effort and medication dose affect opiate and cocaine drug choice. Short-term maintenance on buprenorphine (an alternate to methadone) is included but this is not a treatment study. This requires reporting ... every day to receive the medication.

Volunteers must be willing to live for at least 22 and up to 26 consecutive nights on a residential unit, during which time they will participate in 12 experimental sessions that involve different doses of a medication (sustained release amphetamine) and choices between different drug does and money. Candidates will be thoroughly medically and psychiatrically screened. Only volunteers who are in good health, from 18 to 55 years old, and not seeking treatment will be accepted.

Volunteers can earn up to $50 for screening and from $880 to $1,328 for completing the study.

I wonder what will happen when you take a group of heroin addicts, give the bupe to help keep them off heroin during the study, give them stimulants for 3 weeks, give them a large sum of money, and then send them on their way?

At best, it's a set-up for a self-destructive binge. At worst, it's a set-up for an overdose.

This made it through a human subjects committee. They hate us.

UPDATE: Someone questioned whether "they" really hate us. I believe that this could only happen in a climate of contempt and dehumanization. If it's not hatred, it's depraved indifference.