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"Truth serums" making a comeback?
Fred Schwarz, "The Tank" @ National Review. . . Truth serums are a class of barbiturates (sodium pentothal is the most common) that simultaneously increase ones desire to talk and decrease ones ability to think, with predictable results: The subject says a lot, and since it usually takes some mental effort to sustain a lie, the assumption is that at least part of what he says will be true. The effect is similar to getting drunk, but its easier for interrogators to control the dosage. As with alcohol, truth serums can have nasty side effects and are far from perfect at establishing the truth. Still, no other interrogation technique is foolproof either, and a quick injection or two is a lot less stressful on the subject than most, besides being over more quickly. Truth serums are banned from use by most major Western nations, suppposedly including the U.S. (though in a 2004 note in the Stanford Law Review, not available online, Jason R. Odeshoo argued that no law at either the state or national level makes the use of truth serum a crime per se"), and given the need for the interrogator to disentangle truth from nonsense, they have no place in a courtroom. But for a terrorist who may have high-value information, is chemically induced honesty a more humane and efficient alternative to techniques like waterboarding? . . . . . . while nobody will admit to developing a drug specifically for this purpose, recent research has revealed promising ways to manipulate the brains chemistry in ways that could promote truth-telling. No single interrogation method will work in all cases, and all must be used with skepticism about what the subject reveals. With these caveats, though, there are some in the intelligence community who would welcome the use of truth serums not as a panacea, but as one more weapon in the terrorist-fighting arsenal. Posted by: Mike 2008-12-05 |
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