The U.S. Narcotic Farm just outside Lexington, KY, was a legendary meeting place for America’s drug addicts. Now, a new book and documentary, “The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts”, tells the story of the federal prison in Kentucky which was a temporary home for thousands, including Sonny Rollins, Peter Lorre and William S. Burroughs as well as a lab for addiction treatments such as LSD.

From 1935 to 1975, just about everyone busted for drugs in the U.S. was sent to the United States Narcotic Farm outside Lexington, Ky. Equal parts federal prison, treatment center, research laboratory and farm, this controversial institution was designed not only to rehabilitate addicts, but to discover a cure for drug addiction.

According to the book, the institution became a premier center for research into drug addiction and treatment, advancing everything from the use of methadone to treat heroin withdrawal to drugs that blocked the action of opiates.