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Truth serum

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A truth drug (or truth serum) is a drug used for the purposes of obtaining information from an unwilling subject, most often by a police, intelligence, or military organization on a prisoner. The use of truth drugs is classified as a form of torture according to international law.[1] It has been reported that "truth drugs" have been used by Russian secret services, successors of the KGB, [2][3] as well as by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Documented are several CIA operations such as Edgewood Arsenal experiments and Projects MKNAOMI, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and CHATTER.

Use

Substances

Drugs used for this purpose have included ethanol, scopolamine, temazepam, and various barbiturates including the anesthetic induction agent sodium thiopental (more commonly known as sodium pentothal): all sedatives that interfere particularly with judgment and higher cognitive function. While grain alcohol (ethanol) is used for this purpose by many individuals in a more innocent sense, it is used by professionals as well. A book by the former Soviet KGB officer Yuri Shvets based in Washington details the use of near-pure ethanol to verify that a Soviet agent was not compromised by U.S. counterintelligence services.[4]

Truth drugs used by Russian secret services

A defector from the biological weapons department 12 of the KGB "illegals" (S) directorate (presently a part of Russian SVR service) claimed that a truth drug codenamed SP-17 is highly effective and has been widely used. "The 'remedy which loosens the tongue' has no taste, no smell, no color, and no immediate side effects. And, most important, a person has no recollection of having the 'heart-to-heart talk'" (the human subject feels afterwards as if they suddenly fell asleep). Officers of the S directorate used the drug primarily to check the trustworthiness of their own illegal agents who operated overseas. [3] Assassinated ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko suggested that Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin was drugged with the same substance (identified as SP-117) by FSB agents during the 2004 Russian presidential election (he dropped out of the presidential race due to the alleged kidnapping and drugging by FSB agents) [2]

Reliability

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.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Winfried Brugger (2000). "May government ever use torture? Two responses from German law". The American Journal of Comparative Law. 48 (4): 661–678. These provisions state clearly that the application of considerable physical coercion with the intent of obtaining a statement, or the use of other methods to weaken the resolve of a detainee, such as "truth" drugs, falls under the definition of torture
  2. ^ a b Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB. New York: Free Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1416551652.
  3. ^ a b Alexander Kouzminov Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West, Greenhill Books, 2006, ISBN 1-853-67646-2 [1].
  4. ^ Yuri B. Shvets, Washington Station: My Life as a KGB Spy in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994.

See also

Further reading

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