Truth drug

A truth drug (or truth serum) is a psychoactive drug used to obtain information from an unwilling subject, most often by a police, intelligence, or military organization. The use of truth drugs is classified as a form of torture according to international law.^[1] It has been reported that "truth drugs" have been used by Russian secret services, successors of the KGB,^[2]^[3] and Central Bureau of Investigation (India)CBI^[4].

Substances

So-called truth drugs have included ethanol, scopolamine, temazepam, and various barbiturates including the anesthetic induction agent sodium thiopental (commonly known as sodium pentathol): all are sedatives that interfere particularly with judgment and higher cognitive function. A book by the former Soviet KGB officer Yuri Shvets based in Washington details the use of near-pure ethanol to verify that a Soviet agent was not compromised by U.S. counterintelligence services.^[5]

Applications

Russian secret services

A defector from the biological weapons department 12 of the KGB "illegals" (S) directorate (part of Russian SVR service) claimed that a truth drug codenamed SP-17 is highly effective and has been widely used. "The 'remedy which loosens the tongue' has no taste, no smell, no color, and no immediate side effects. And, most important, a person has no recollection of having the 'heart-to-heart talk'" (the subject feels afterwards as if they had suddenly fallen asleep). Officers of the S directorate used the drug primarily to determine the trustworthiness of their own illegal agents who operated overseas.^[3] The assassinated ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko suggested that Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin was drugged with the same substance (identified as SP-117) by FSB agents during the 2004 Russian presidential election (he dropped out of the presidential race due to the alleged kidnapping and drugging by FSB agents).^[2]

CIA

Reliability

According to information obtained by public disclosure, truth drugs are 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. It has also been said that the use of a truth serum such as sodium amobarbital does not increase truth-telling, but merely increases talking; therefore, truth is more likely to be revealed, but so are lies.^[6]

In pop culture

Truth drugs have been featured in serious films for several decades. A recent appearance was in Kill Bill: Volume 2, in which Bill shoots the Bride with a homemade truth serum. In the film True Lies, the main character, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is given a truth serum to tell his wife about his life. In the film Rise of the Foot Soldier truth serum is administered by heroin dealers during interrogation to determine if any of Carlton Leach's crew had stolen the £10 million heroin shipment that had gone missing.

Television shows have also used truth serum as a plot device. In the pilot episode of Two Guys and a Girl, Berg (Ryan Reynolds) purposely overdoses on an inhaler that contains "sodium penothane" which he refers to as "truth serum." He then proceeds to only tell the truth about everything. In an episode of Twin Peaks, Garland Briggs is administered Haloperidol as a truth serum. Haloperidol is not typically used for this purpose and the portrayal of its effects on the show is somewhat suspect.^{citation needed} In the Smallville episode "Truth", Chloe Sullivan accidentally inhales a kryptonite gas that acts as a truth serum to anyone who comes in contact with her. In the 2004 "Salem Stalker" storyline on Days of Our Lives, Marlena Evans was given Sodium Pentothal in order to remember and confess to the murders she was accused of committing. After the effects of the drugs wore off and she had delivered a full confession, she did not remember anything of the process. Truth serum was also used several times on the soap opera All My Children, by the character Dr. David Hayward.

Truth drugs have also appeared in games and literature. The computer game, KGB (Conspiracy), requires the main character to use a lethal truth drug on a Leningrad KGB officer to obtain information. Chapkin explains that the drug is "improved sodium pentothal. Very effective, but lethal." In the book Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, Artemis tells his captive that he gave her sodium pentathol, so that she would reveal her secrets.

References

^ Winfried Brugger (2000). "May government ever use torture? Two responses from German law". The American Journal of Comparative Law 48: 661–678. doi:10.2307/840910. “These provisions state clearly that the application of considerable physical coercion with the intent of obtaining a statement, or the use of other methods to weaken the resolve of a detainee, such as "truth" drugs, falls under the definition of torture”
^ ^a ^b Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB. New York: Free Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1416551652.
^ ^a ^b Alexander Kouzminov Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West, Greenhill Books, 2006, ISBN 1-853-67646-2 [1].
^ http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jun/26aarushi.htm
^ Yuri B. Shvets, Washington Station: My Life as a KGB Spy in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994.
^ August Piper Jr., M.D. "'Truth serum' and 'recovered memories' of sexual abuse: a review of the evidence". Journal of Psychiatry & Law, Winter 1993 447-471.

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