Truth drug

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A truth drug (or truth serum) is a drug used for the purposes of obtaining accurate information from an unwilling subject, most often by a police, intelligence, or military organization on a prisoner. Effective truth drugs are mostly fictional, though some drugs have been shown to be effective in lowering the resistance (but sometimes also reliability) of an interrogated person.

1 Real-world use
- 1.1 Substances
- 1.2 Reliability
2 In fiction
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Real-world use

[edit] Substances

Drugs used for this purpose have included ethanol, scopolamine, and the anaesthetic induction agent sodium thiopental (more commonly known as sodium pentothal); all sedatives that interfere particularly with judgment and higher cognitive function. While grain alcohol (ethanol) is used for this purpose by many individuals in a more innocent sense, it is used by professionals as well. A book by a former Soviet KGB officer based in Washington details the use of near-pure ethanol to verify that a Soviet agent was not compromised by U.S. counterintelligence services.^[1]

[edit] Reliability

Information obtained by publicly-disclosed truth drugs has been shown to be highly unreliable, with subjects apparently freely mixing fact and fantasy. Much of the claimed effect relies on the belief of the subject that they cannot tell a lie while under the influence of the drug.

Interest in truth drugs use has been re-examined after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks.^[2] Accounts of more effective truth drugs in military than known to public science are speculation, however. These drugs just affect the nervous system, just like alcohol. A person can still lie while under the influence of a "Truth Serum."

[edit] In fiction

Fictional accounts of intelligence interrogation give truth drugs near magical abilities, ranging from instant effects to near-lucid (but totally truthful) speech on part of the subject. Many fictional stories also toy with the distinction between what the person under the influence of the truth drug believes is true and what is really true.

In the fourth novel of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a magical truth serum called Veritaserum is used on Barty Crouch who has been masquerading as Mad Eye Moody, to reveal the truth of his work. The serum is shown as 100% effective with complete incapacity to lie.

In the film Johnny English, Rowan Atkinson uses a hypodermic needle filled with truth serum disguised in a ring. The serum is rather effective, with the victim even volunteering additional information.

In Thomas Pynchon's book Gravity's Rainbow, the chemical sodium amytal is used as a truth serum.

In the film The Good Shepherd, CIA interrogators use a vial filled with LSD in an attempt to determine the validity of information a Soviet defector provided the Agency. LSD, at the time that the film is set, was being experimented with by various organizations to determine its effectiveness as a truth serum. These kind of test were carried forward under other studies, the most encompassing study being the Agency's Project MKULTRA.

[edit] References

^ Washington station: my life as a KGB spy in America - Shvets, Yuri B; Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994
^ New York Law School Law Review (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-03-28.