Truth drug? You must be kidding
Mar. 12, 2003 12:00 AM
Today's question has been coming in a lot lately in one form or another ever since they captured that one al-Qaida big shot a week or so ago. I think you people have been watching too many spy movies.
When they capture these terrorist suspects, why don't they just inject them with truth serum to get them to talk?
Basically it comes down to this: There isn't really any such thing as "truth serum," a drug you can give someone that will induce them to tell you the truth about everything they know. If there were such a thing, think of the trouble you'd be in. Or the trouble I'd be in.
When people talk about truth serum, they are generally referring to thiopental sodium, a barbiturate marketed by Abbot Laboratories as Sodium Pentothal. It comes in the form of a yellow crystal and can be dissolved in water or alcohol and can be administered orally or by injection. All that makes it popular with writers of spy books and movies and the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, which, by the way, I still believe to be one of the pinnacles of 20th-century Western culture. If you think about it, things have been going downhill ever since Rocky and Bullwinkle went out of regular production.
Anyway, Sodium Pentothal chiefly is sold as a sedative and anesthetic for people and animals.
If Boris Badenov were to slip a dose of Sodium Pentothal into your martini while you were being distracted by Natasha, this is what would happen: First of all, of course, Boris would cackle evilly. Next, you might notice your martini smelled of garlic, because Sodium Pentothal has an "alliaceous" odor. Alliaceous - you can look it up.
Most of all, your central nervous system would be depressed, your heart rate would drop, and your blood pressure would fall. Your inhibitions would be lowered, which may not be something we'd all like to see. You would become expansive and talkative. You might even turn out to be a real blabbermouth.
The catch is there is no guarantee that what you may blab may be the truth. You may be fantasizing, you may be just blithering on and on about any old thing, you may be dredging up old memories, real or imagined, or you may even retain enough of your senses to deliberately lie to mislead your captors.
Evidence gained by the use of truth-inducing drugs is not admissible in U.S. courts. And using such drugs is generally considered a form of torture under international standards. Even if it's not torture, if the stuff can't be relied upon to induce truthful answers, what's the point?
Reach Thompson at clay .thompson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8612.