How does sodium pentathol work? Does it do something to the brain that forces the truth out – or has the reputation of sodium pentathol’s effectiveness been boosted by its profile in movies and books?
Having had Sodium Pentathol once (there are air-sickness patches that you put behind your ears which used sodium pentathol), it didn’t make me tell the truth, but it did make me talkative. Very talkative. And slightly buzzed.
Fenris
As you probably suspected, the legend of an effective “truth serum” is mostly a sham. Sodium pentathol belongs to a class of drugs called barbiturates. These are strong sedatives that can be prescribed as sleeping pills or to ease extreme anxiety caused by other drug withdrawals. If you have ever had more than a little bit of alcohol at once, the effect would be similar.
Police departments and other government agencies obviously had a strong desire for an effective truth serum during the 1940’s and 1950’s. They tried many things, included marijuana, but none were very effective. The closest thing that they could find is sodium pentathol.
Sodium pentathol merely relaxes the subject so that he or she is more likely to be candid. It does not target any specific memories or “force the truth to come out”. Again, it is similar to eliciting a confession from a drunk person. It might work but it is not guaranteed. The subject may in fact pass out if the injection is too large. It is probably very fortunate that a truly effective truth serum does not yet exist.
I concur. The effect of this drug lessens one’s inhibitions…such as to lying or remaining silent.
Once drugged, you just don’t care about any consequences or ramifications.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the information volunteered by the subject is rather irrelevant.
Reminds me of the scene from Flight 714: The Adventures of Tintin where Rastapopulous tries to get the bank account number from the world’s richest man buy using a truth drug, accidentally gets jabbed himself, and ends up in an argument about who is more evil.
And, of course, if you give your subject too much…
Sodium Pentathol is also one of the chemicals used in execution by lethal injection.
How about such neurochemicals as scopolamine? These seem to be powerful “disassociatives” that remove a person’s self-conciousness of their actions.
There are other drugs that I think would be better for “truth serums.” STP (pentothal) is a hypnotic/barbiturate which in small doses could disinhibit a person into actions that they normally would suppress. Large doses induces sleep-apnea-general anesthesia. Other drugs that would probably have similar or even better effects include: propofol/diprivan…again, a hypnotic used for sedation/induction of general anesthesia, scopolamine…an anticholinergic in the same class as atropine…can produce some serious central nervous system effects like delusions, hallucinations, disorientation, and sedtion, ketamine…a drug related to PCP…is often used in veterinary anesthesia but is also frequently used in humans…has some mind altering effects, often frightening hallucinations. All of these and there are several others would be good in appropriate doses for producing a ‘disinhibited’ person who might be persuaded to give information that he was previously unwilling to tell.
P.S. It is scopolamine, not pentothal that is in the motion sickness patches.