

Can a drug make you tell the truth? Reporter tries sodium thiopental - RobAley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24371140

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skj
"There is a serious risk you will say what your interrogator wants to hear
rather than the truth."

This statement seems entirely plausible to me, but it was in no way implied by
the evidence provided. I hate terrible experiments!

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stormbrew
Yeah. Really disappointing article, kind of just stops right when it gets
interesting.

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corin_
Agreed, but at the same time was still interesting enough that I'm glad I read
it.

In addition to wanting an actual explanation on his claim that it makes you
very suggestible, I also want details on whether this could be avoided by a
good interrogator. If it makes false confessions easy then for sure I wouldn't
support allowing it in legal proceedings, but if it's possible to be used both
safely and effectively then perhaps it might be useful still in some cases.
For example you wouldn't convict someone of kidnapping based on a confession
on this, but if they confessed to where they were holding their captive then
it could be well worth doing. Possibly even as an internal, non-admissible,
form of investigation (e.g. "under this drug he said he's not a killer so we
believe him slightly more now"), as long as red tape is in place to prevent
abuse.

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Renaud
The issue with drugs is that it takes a huge body of evidence and experiments
to be able to assert, with a margin of error, that a drug is safe or that it
does what we think it does. For something like a 'truth serum' of any kind to
be deemed both safe and reliable, you would have to study it pretty hard and
pretty long and have a very high degree of confidence that when given to a
particular person, you are going to get something provably reliable from them.

On top of that, imagine that the drug (a barbiturate after all) has a chance
to kills one in a million. Would it even be ethical to use it?

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criley2
Honestly, considering that polygraph is used in courts despite there being no
evidence at all for the efficacy of the test, I think you're greatly
overvaluing the weight of evidence required...

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leephillips
Really? Which courts accept polygraph results as evidence?

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criley2
California, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Florida courts have precedent of
allowing the polygraph in court.

There is likely more than that too...

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leephillips
I was surprised at this, so I did some cursory Googling. It looks like these
states allow polygraph evidence only if both sides agree, and further limit
its use in various ways. So even in these states it's not treated as real
evidence. However, I don't think pseudoscience should be admitted even under
these restrictive conditions.

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epoxyhockey
_State v. Pitts, 116 N.J. 580 (The Supreme Court of New Jersey 1989) (“Three
experts ... agreed that sodium-amytal-induced interviews are not considered
scientifically reliable for the purpose of ascertaining "truth."”)._

Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum#References](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum#References)

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rdl
I wonder if MDMA has been studied as a "suggestibility drug" or "truth serum".
From what I have read of the effects, it seems like it would be at least as
effective, and fairly safe (maybe 250mg + 125mg 1hr later; spend the first
period building rapport, and interrogate later).

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hobbes300
It might make you hug the interrogator but not much more.

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craftkiller
I disagree, a lot of people spill their entire life story when they take it.

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PeterisP
The question is if they'd spill their story even if they have a strong
motivation/decision to not spill the story, as described in the article. For
example, many people tend to talk about themselves while drunk; but they don't
magically start talking about things they really, really want to hide, they'd
instead become aggressive or silent.

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mktcrn
>The question is if they'd spill their story even if they have a strong
motivation/decision to not spill the story, as described in the article.

This is merely anecdotal evidence, but having ingested MDMA and experienced
these effects, I would say no. There is still very much a feeling that certain
things are off-limits. I couldn't imagine that someone would, for example,
confess to a murder whilst being interrogated under the influence of MDMA
(unless they felt extreme guilt, perhaps).

However, I could easily see myself admitting that I'm not actually a heart
surgeon.

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namlem
"the drug is interfering with your higher centres, like your cortex, where a
lot of decision making goes on."

This line was pretty funny, at least in a 'man that's some impressive
scientific illiteracy' kind of way. The cortex is a huge portion of the brain
where most of your sensory processing and nearly all of your cognition takes
place.

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linux_devil
Should be mixed with food in parliament house canteen.

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Ygg2
It doesn't work if you believe in your own lies.

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justin66
A braver and, I assume, much more meaningful experiment would have involved an
interrogator with little regard for the journalist's safety and a strong
incentive to keep a certain piece of information secret.

