On Tue, 23 Oct 2001 measl@mfn.org wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Anonymous User wrote:

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At the risk of being told to go google (which I guess I'll do in a moment), does anyone have any information either contrary to this, or possibly of another "truth serum" that would fit the stated bill?

Methylenedioxy-n-methylamphetamine.

I have never heard of MDMA in this context before.

A quick google does not produce meaningful citations either :-( Any pointers to research?

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22truth+drug%22 Turns up a lot of info on the various substances that have been tried as "truth drugs." The first hit is about MDMA: http://www.idmu.co.uk/xtruth.html I seem to recall that MDA (very similar to MDMA) was in fact used in US Army studies of truth drugs. The most likely to have some measure of sucess would probably be MDMA. However, no chemical is likely to be found that forces a subject to tell the truth. The most successful "truth drugs" all generally work on the same idea: if you can make your subject more relaxed, at ease, and eager to talk, you'll be able to extract more information from him and possibly extrapolate the truth from that. MDMA would have a greater degree of success in cases where the subject subconsciously wanted to talk anyway.