Truth serum
A "Truth serum" is a colloquial name for any of a range of psychoactive drugs used in an effort to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it otherwise. These include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, midazolam, flunitrazepam, sodium thiopental, and amobarbital, among others.
Although a variety of such substances have been tested, serious issues have been raised about their use scientifically, ethically and legally. There is currently no drug proven to cause consistent or predictable enhancement of truth-telling. Subjects questioned under the influence of such substances have been found to be suggestible and their memories subject to reconstruction and fabrication. When such drugs have been used in the course of investigating civil and criminal cases, they have not been accepted by Western legal systems and legal experts as genuine investigative tools. In the United States, it has been suggested that their use is a potential violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Concerns have also been raised through
the European Court of Human Rights arguing that use of a truth serum could be considered a violation of a human right to be free from degrading treatment, or could be considered a form of torture. It has been noted to be a violation of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.
"Truth serum" was abused against psychotic patients as part of old, discredited practices of psychiatry and is no longer used. In a therapeutic context, the controlled administration of intravenous hypnotic medications is called "narcosynthesis" or "narcoanalysis". Such application was first documented by Dr. William Bleckwenn. Reliability and suggestibility of patients are concerns, and the practice of chemically inducing an involuntary mental state is now widely considered to be a form of torture.
Active chemical substances
s or hypnotics that alter higher cognitive function include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, potent short or intermediate acting hypnotic benzodiazepines such as midazolam, flunitrazepam, and various short and ultra-short acting barbiturates, including sodium thiopental and amobarbital.Reliability
While there have been many clinical studies of the efficacy of narcoanalysis in interrogation or lie detection, there is dispute whether any of them qualify as a randomized, controlled study, that would meet scientific standards for determining effectiveness.Use by country
India
India's Central Bureau of Investigation has used intravenous barbiturates for interrogation, often in high-profile cases. One such case was the interrogation of Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive by police in the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. Kasab was a Pakistani militant and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group. On 3 May 2010, Kasab was found guilty of 80 offences, including murder, waging war against India, possessing explosives, and other charges. On 6 May 2010, the same trial court sentenced him to death on four counts and to a life sentence on five counts.The Central Bureau of Investigation also conducted this test on Krishna, a key witness in the high-profile 2008 Aarushi-Hemraj Murder Case to seek more information from Krishna and also determine his credibility as a witness with key information, yet not known to the investigating authorities. Per unverified various media sources, Krishna had purported to have deemed Hemraj as not guilty of Aarushi's murder, claiming he "treat Aarushi like his own daughter".
On May 5, 2010 the Supreme Court Judge Balasubramaniam in the case "Smt. Selvi vs. State of Karnataka" held that narcoanalysis, polygraph and brain mapping tests were to be allowed after consent of accused. The judge stated: "We are of the considered opinion that no individual can be forced and subjected to such techniques involuntarily, and by doing so it amounts to unwarranted intrusion of personal liberty."
In Gujrat, Madhya Pradesh High Court permitted narcoanalysis in the investigation of a killing of a tiger that occurred in May 2010. The Jhurjhura Tigress at Bandhavgarh National Park, a mother of three cubs, was found dead as a result of being hit by a vehicle. A Special Task Force requested the narcoanalysis testing of four persons, one of whom refused to consent on grounds of potential post-test complications.
Russia
A defector from the biological weapons Department 12 of the KGB "illegals" directorate claimed a serum code-named SP-117 was highly effective, and has been widely used. According to him, "The 'remedy which loosens the tongue' has no taste, no smell, no color, and no immediate side effects. Most importantly, a person had no recollection having had the 'heart-to-heart talk'," and felt afterward as though they'd suddenly fallen asleep. Officers of S Directorate primarily used the drug to verify fidelity and trustworthiness of their agents who operated overseas, such as Vitaly Yurchenko. According to Alexander Litvinenko, Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin was drugged with the same substance by FSB agents during his kidnapping in 2004.United States
was promoted by obstetrician Robert Ernest House as an advance that would prevent false convictions, beginning in 1922. He had noted that women in childbirth who were given scopolamine could answer questions accurately even while in a state of twilight sleep, and were oftentimes "exceedingly candid" in their remarks. House proposed that scopolamine could be used when interrogating suspected criminals. He even arranged to administer scopolamine to prisoners in the Dallas County jail. Both men were believed to be guilty, both denied guilt under scopolamine, and both were eventually acquitted. In 1926, the use of scopolamine was rejected in a court case, by Judge Robert Walker Franklin, who questioned both its scientific origin, and the uncertainty of its effect.The United States Office of Strategic Services experimented with the use of mescaline, scopolamine, and marijuana as possible truth drugs during World War II. They concluded that the effects were not much different from those of alcohol: subjects became more talkative but that did not mean they were more truthful. Like hypnosis, there were also issues of suggestibility and interviewer influence. Cases involving scopolamine resulted in a mixture of testimonies both for and against those suspected, at times directly contradicting each other.
LSD was also considered as a possible truth serum, but found unreliable. During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency carried out a number of investigations including Project MKUltra and Project MKDELTA, which involved illegal use of truth drugs including LSD. A CIA report from 1961, released in 1993, concludes:
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Townsend v. Sain, that confessions produced as a result of ingestion of truth serum were "unconstitutionally coerced" and therefore inadmissible. The viability of forensic evidence produced from truth sera has been addressed in lower courts – judges and expert witnesses have generally agreed that they are not reliable for lie detection.
In 1967, Perry Russo was administered sodium pentothal for interrogation by District Attorney Jim Garrison in the investigation of JFK's assassination.
More recently, a judge approved the use of narcoanalysis in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting trial to evaluate whether James Eagan Holmes's state of mind was valid for an insanity plea. Judge William Sylvester ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to interrogate Holmes "under the influence of a medical drug designed to loosen him up and get him to talk", such as sodium amytal, if he filed an insanity plea. The hope was that a 'narcoanalytic interview' could confirm whether or not he had been legally insane on 20 July, the date of the shootings. It is not known whether such an examination was carried out.
William Shepherd, chair of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association, stated, with respect to the Holmes case, that use of a 'truth drug' as proposed, "to ascertain the veracity of a defendant's plea of insanity... would provoke intense legal argument relating to Holmes's right to remain silent under the fifth amendment of the US constitution." Discussing possible effectiveness of such an examination, psychiatrist August Piper stated that "amytal’s inhibition-lowering effects in no way prompt the subject to offer up true statements or memories." Psychology Today’s Scott Linfield noted, as per Piper, that "there’s good reason to believe that truth serums merely lower the threshold for reporting virtually all information, both true and false."