Can a drug make you tell the truth? Reporter tries sodium thiopental | Hacker News Reader

Can a drug make you tell the truth? Reporter tries sodium thiopental

bbc.co.uk

96 pointsRobAley32 comments

"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!

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

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.

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?

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...

Direct polygraph evidence isn't used in courts. Polygraphs are a scam used by authorities to trick people into confessing. The trick is that they hook you up, ask you questions, and tell you "the machine says you're LYING!" until they get an answer they like better than the one you've been giving before. If it works, you give up and confess, then your confession is used in court.

Really? Which courts accept polygraph results as evidence?

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

There is likely more than that too...

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.

This isn't an experiment at all in the scientific sense. It is one persons experience with a drug. He then draws on common opinions and general lore to suggest some things as conclusions.

This is just journalism.

It's like he wrote the last two paragraphs before he took the drug, then never bothered to change them.

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

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).

Having taken Molly, I'd say no, it doesn't make you any more suggestible or willing to tell the truth than marijuana or excessive alcohol do.

Maybe the most "suggestive" aspect of any of these drugs is the reduction of inhibitions and worry. But it's all relative to a person's sense of self and force of will -- they don't change you into another person, just remove some of the emotional blocks which prevent you from being, doing, or saying what you want to.

>maybe 250mg + 125mg 1hr later

This transforms you into an Anime character. Then your jaw spontaneously shatters and your eyes start hemorrhaging rainbows.

Jokes aside, I've wondered about this as well. Especially if you treated the interrogatee in a mellow manner while he or she was captive, then slipped in some doses without them knowing, and then set the music right, or had them shacked up in some Swiss chalet with a wine cellar and a breath taking view. People spilling their guts on MDMA is a function the environment with the drug is a catalyst. And it's not like you're completely out of your mind; you are well aware of your surroundings and you would almost certainly know you've been detained, which would taint the whole experience.

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

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

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.

>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.

That same thing happens with alcohol for a lot of people.

Only when you are young.

Based on what I've read about other side effects, any positive gains made in the person possibly telling the truth would be negated by the drug's side effects (profuse sweating, elevated heart rate, etc.) causing normal 'lie detector' monitoring tools being rendered ineffective.

On one side, I thought we were discussing using a chemical to enforce truthfulness instead of a device.

On the other side, I'd never thought of using an intoxicant to invalidate lie detecting devices.

If I were in the...truthing...business, I guess I'd want to back up any use of a chemical with some secondary form of validation.

But all chemical truthing methods would invalidate your mechanical truthing methods...

Some kinds of data can be independently verified after torture, or you can use different techniques, nominally by different organizations (good cop, bad cop) to authenticate information.

This is why organizations like MAPS are important. There could be a lot to learn about chemicals and for the government to say no to research is plain ridiculous IMO. I am no fan of the chemicals that are found on the streets because there is no real knowledge of what goes into such substances. Reading the book on Albert Hoffman's life and research was very enlightening on this kind of situation on scientific research.

"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.

Should be mixed with food in parliament house canteen.

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

I'd say the same for the 'government' here in the colonies, but it's not like they show up for work these days, anyway.

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.

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