After 9/11, there was discussion in national newspapers about whether it was a good idea to interview suspects who use these drugs. Whenever there is a desperate need for information on the part of people, there is speculation as to whether these drugs will receive that information. But you also receive constant warnings that the information may be less reliable than what you would get without the drug. This skepticism had been there since the beginning 80 years ago. In this way, it recalls the polygraph that does not recognize lies, but draws great power from the mode of fear and confession it evokes. Both technologies were considered “third-degree” variants that police used on suspects, as well as beatings with chloroform and rubber hoses. In a U.S. From 1931 A police officer described how officers told a resistant suspect that if necessary, they could simply beat him unconscious by drugging his coffee and then injecting him with scopolamine. “In many cases, the frightened suspect spoke to avoid being tested with the truth serum,” the official said. There is no law prohibiting the use of truth serum, provided the subject agrees. But in a 1963 case, the Supreme Court ruled that the resulting confession was forced and therefore unconstitutional. It is unlikely that evidence obtained in this way can ever be admissible in court, with a few exceptions: in 2012, a Colorado judge allowed the alleged Aurora movie shooter to undergo a “narcoanalytic interview,” not to establish his guilt, but to determine his plea of insanity. This, too, has been very controversial.
Truth serums are also often used for comic book effects, as in Meet the Fockers, where Robert De Niro plays a retired CIA officer and a caricature of a suspicious stepfather. When he injects Pentothal into his son-in-law, played by Ben Stiller, the young man confesses in front of a room full of parents his lust for his mother-in-law. In another realistic variant used in the TV series Get Smart and many other productions, the drug works too well: the character reveals everything that comes to mind, including random trifles that made the interrogators cry. That is, they may be strictly acceptable as a means of obtaining information and in other limited circumstances. “At least,” lawyer Jason Odeshoo wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2004, “the issue is much closer than critics generally assume. In this article, published in preparation for the post-9/11 legal climate, he suggested that the shadow of terrorism could provoke a change in attitude. The “truth serum” refers to various drugs that have been used to extract truthful statements from people. Wine was the basic extraction method in ancient times, but the first documented use of a truth serum to solve a criminal case took place in New York City in 1903. Ether, the drug that seduces the truth, prompted a policeman who murdered his wife to confess. But the first drug ever approved as a truth-inducing drug was scopolamine. One of the biggest problems with using the truth serum for interrogations is the warm and friendly feeling it gives the subject towards his interrogator. Combined with a state of severe disorientation, this can cause a subject to tell their interrogator what they think the interrogator wants to hear, which may or may not be true.
In 2004, Novaya Gazeta, referring to KGB General Oleg Kalugin, published an article stating that since the late 1980s, the first and second directorates of the KGB had exceptionally and mainly among foreign citizens used an odorless, colorless and tasteless soluble substance named SP-117, an improved successor to similar drugs. previously used by the KGB. This was effective in causing a subject to lose control 15 minutes after ingestion. [27] More importantly, a person who receives two parts of the drug consecutively, that is: The “dote” and the “antidote” had no memory of what had happened in between, and had the impression that he had suddenly fallen asleep, the preferred way to administer the “dote” being in an alcoholic beverage, as the latter would serve as a flimsy explanation for the sudden onset of drowsiness. [27] Until 2011, it was sometimes used as an anesthetic, as patients typically faint within 30 to 45 seconds of taking the drug. But the United States completely stopped using the drug a few years ago. Just because there`s no truth-enhancing drug today doesn`t mean there might be one in the future, according to Mark Wheelis, a professor and expert in the history of biological warfare and biological weapons control at the University of California, Davis. Although many of the first drugs used by the CIA, police and Nazi interrogators in the 20s, 30s and 40s still exist today, they have other uses such as ingredients in drugs that prevent motion sickness and for lethal injections. The ability to separate truths from lies has long eluded humanity: we tend to lie when it`s ours, and we have trouble recognizing when we`re being lied to.
Even police officers and other specialists trained to detect deception are about as likely to fail as the average person. The first modern method of extracting buried truths was hypnosis, which fascinated early psychologists with its promise to discover the roots of mental disorders. Also, don`t get too familiar with sodium amytal or you may become addicted. This medication is sometimes used to treat insomnia and is often given intravenously, although it can be taken orally in powder form. Take too much of this medicine and it can be fatal. The maximum dose for an adult is one gram. One solution sought is the legendary “truth serum,” an umbrella term for any drug that renders its recipient unable to tell a lie. At present, there is no such drug, that is, no drug that tells the truth in a consistent and predictable way.
Nevertheless, this power has been attributed to a variety of mixtures over the past century. These claims have fueled debate about their ethics and legality, as well as the mechanisms underlying memory itself. What`s crazy about Truth Serum and the damage it has done over the years is that its conceptual creator, Dr. Robert House, wanted it to exonerate prisoners.
