FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent

[jamesd at echeque.com]

    --
On 22 Oct 2001, at 23:05, measl at mfn.org wrote:
>  My understanding
> (from questioning on this topic in the distant past with an 
> MD/"shrink") is that the sodium 
> thiopental/pentobarbital/etc. "truth serum" is an urban 
> legend.  He was quite specific that the drug was a definite 
> aid to relaxing patients, and "allowing" them to go where 
> they _wanted_ to (psychiatrically speaking) with much less 
> "work", but that "pentothal interviews" were very much not 
> free-will altering devices.

In vino veritas.

People will confess under mere psychological pressure even
when sober, sometimes to terrible crimes that they have not
committed.

A wide variety of drugs, most famously alcohol, will make
them even more talkative, though less coherent and
intelligible.  Most of the date rape drugs are also highly
effective truth serums, most of them considerably more
effective even than alcohol.  Jimson weed can get anyone to
talk with alarming frankness, though what they say may not
make a lot of sense, or have any reliable connection to
reality. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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