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.
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 alcohol 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, Washington Station, details the use of near-pure alcohol to verify that a Soviet agent was not compromised by U.S. counterintelligence services.
While fictional accounts of intelligence interrogation give these drugs near magical abilities, 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.
As of 1993 in Canada these were still used to help diagnose schizophrenic subjects, especially paranoia where the difficulty was to get the subject to talk at all. Subjects experienced with other hallucinogenic drugs reported similarity of effects of sodium amytal to that of LSD or psilocybin, but for a 20 minute period.[citation needed]
Interest in their use outside intelligence services has since declined to negligible levels—though their use has been re-examined after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. It is possible, but thought unlikely by experts in anaesthetics (the drugs most closely resembling truth drugs in common use), that intelligence services do have more effective drugs at their disposal which they have not disclosed.
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Truth drugs in popular culture
Abdul Karim Telgi, the main accused in the multi-crore fake stamp paper scam, was subjected to narco analysis (presumably using truth drugs) in 2003 and has named certain Indian politicians as the backbone of the scam. Telgi named Sharad Pawar, presently Minister of Agriculture in the Union Government, Vilasrao Deshmukh, presently Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Chhagan Bhujbal, presently Minister for the Public Works Department in Maharashtra and Roshan Baig, a Karnataka MLA as being involved in the racket.
In episode 12 of season 5 in 24 (TV series), Jack Bauer contacts CTU to tell them to prep an interrogation room and for a medic to stand by with hyoscine pentathol, a fictional form of truth serum
In episode 118 of MacGyver, a prisoner is given the choice of confessing freely or being injected with sodium pentothal.
Jonathan Adams' alternative comic book, originally published by Slave Labor Graphics and later self-published by City Cyclops, is titled Truth Serum.
In Thomas Harris' first Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon, FBI agent Will Graham mentions that when previous attempts to gain information from Lecter, regarding the location of one of his victims' bodies, using truth drugs like sodium pentathol, they only succeeded in him giving them 'a recipe for dip.'
Karin Boye's dystopic novel Kallocain, originally published in 1940, is named after, and based around a fictional truth serum.
In the James Bond film Octopussy, the villain Kamal Khan tells Bond that a combination of curare and a psychedelic agent gave "guaranteed results" as a truth drug, although at the cost of permanent insanity for the recipient.
In Tom Clancy’s novel Red Storm Rising, the Soviet Spetznaz officer captured in Aachen prior to the invasion is interrogated via the use of sodium pentothal.
The U.S. television series Alias features repeated references to sodium pentothal as a truth drug.
In the True Lies motion picture Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger), subjected to sodium amytal, details his precise plan of killing the interrogator to the same interrogator, but still manages to carry it out.
In Meet the Fockers, Greg Focker is injected with sodium pentothal by his father-in-law to admit that he impregnated their maid.
In Johnny English, agent Johnny English (played by Rowan Atkinson) accidentally injects Pascal Sauvage's assistant with truth serum when trying to inject him with muscle relaxant. The assistant later proceeds to tell English how to get out of the building without being seen when asked.
In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Doctor Silberman orders Sarah Connor subdued by hospital employees using Sodium Pentathol.
In Jumpin' Jack Flash, Terry Doolittle (Whoopi Goldberg) is injected with sodium pentothal by British Intelligence rogue agents working for the KGB. She manages to escape and, in a drugged state, wreak havoc at a local Elizabeth Arden salon.
In one episode of The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden helps a doctor inject the truth serum into Ed Norton to find out why he is sleepwalking and relieve him of that.
In Days of our Lives, Marlena Evans Black, a respected member of Salem society, is revealed as a serial killer, and is injected with truth serum to reveal the true extents of her killings. This was eventually proved to be false, since all of the victims were, indeed, alive thanks to mass conspiracy. Marlena had been programmed by conspirator Tony DiMera to be at each crime scene, and to believe she had committed 9 counts of murder.
In Kill Bill Volume 2, Bill gives The Bride a truth serum he created himself, called "The Undisputed Truth."
In the Harry Potter universe, there is a magical truth serum known as veritaserum; Harry Potter is threatened with it by Snape at various points in the books, and it is used on Barty Crouch Jr. at the climax of The Goblet of Fire.
In "The Guns of Navarone" Gregory Peck's character refers to scopolamine as a drug that could be used by German troops to make a commando reveal his plans.
In Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", the protagonist Slothrop is injected with sodium amytal and has visions of climbing down a toilet to retrieve his harmonica - a scene echoed by the film Trainspotting.
In the TV series "Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza place", Berg is testing a new allergy medicine, and accidentally takes an overdose after mixing it with juice to make it taste better. It contains what Ashley refers to as Sodium Penothal, making him unable to lie about anything while it has effect on him.
In South Park episode 703, Butters admits to "toilet papering" a teacher's house, a crime he didn't commit. He claims he was given sodium pentathol.
The italian fictional gentleman thief, Diabolik, uses sodium pentothal on his victims to force them to reveal safe combinations.
In Metal Gear Solid, Colonel Roy Campbell informs Solid Snake that traditional interrogation methods are being used since no sodium pentothal is available.
During one episode of the Dukes of Hazzard TV series, the scheming Boss Hogg accidentally and unknowingly sits on a syringe containing sodium pentothal, forcing him to confess to all his wrongdoings including framing the Dukes in a gambling raid, tax evasion, marrying his wife only for the money, and even defacing his own bank advertisement.
In an episode of Batman: the Animated Series, Alfred Pennyworth is kidnapped and given a truth drug in an attempt to extract the combination to a missile silo. He manages to stall the effect for several hours by singing nursery rhymes and gibberish.
In the fictional Star Wars universe Han Solo was a long time 'spice' smuggler. Spice is said to have a potent truth telling effect, though in reality this is just the drug's effect of hyperawareness, making the imbiber think he is telepathic. Princess Leia is given a truth serum in Episode IV: A New Hope, in an attempt to make her reveal the location of the rebel base. In the Rogue Squadron novel The Krytos Trap has New Republic pilot Corran Horn subjected to a "level five nacrco-interrogation", which would cause him to remember "things his mother had forgotten while he was in the womb", and to "have no secrets". However, the effects of such interrogation seem to force the victim to relive past events in excruciating detail, rather than forcing them to tell the truth. Corran, under the effects of the drugs, repeatedly remembers the day his father was murdered.
In the episode Pete part 1 of the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, Arnold Rimmer and Dave Lister are said to have put sodium pentothal in the warden's asthma inhaler as a practical joke.
In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga a drug called 'fast-penta' (which is obviously related to sodium pentothal in name if not in effects) is frequently used as a reliable means of interrogation, and testimony given under its influence is accepted in court by all governments mentioned, even testimony against oneself. Some people are allergic to fast-penta, while others (especially those with access to sensitive government information) frequently have a fatal allergy to fast-penta "implanted" so that if the drug is administered to them, they will die immediately instead of revealing any secrets.
In Robert Aldrich's 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly, a truth serum is given to Mike Hammer.
In The Path to the Black Lodge, episode 27 of the Twin Peaks series by David Lynch and Mark Frost, Windom Earle administers a yellow truth serum to Major Briggs. He tests the onset of its effectiveness with a couple of embarrassing personal questions like What is your greatest fear? and How much does your wife weigh?
In Robert Ludlum's Bourne Ultimatum, Alexander Conklin talks of Mo Panov being a good guy, but he is "no match for amytals."
In the episode of the Fairly Odd Parents,"A Bad Case of Diary-Uh", Vicky uses the truth serum or truth drug with Timmy. She first asks where he got personal information about her. Timmy answers the Internet, so Vicky uses the truth serum. Timmy then says he read her diary.
In the film Stormbreaker, Alex Rider, agent of MI6 (Played by Alex Pettyfer) uses a specially adapted fountain pen that can fire the nib. When the nib is shot at somebody, a dose of sodium pentathol is injected into the blood stream, making the victim do what ever the oppressor wishes for several hours. This is done when Alex Rider is on the plane with Mr. Grin. He forces him to fly him to the Science Museum in London. This however does not happen in the plot from the book