Truth Serum: Myth or Reality?

In ancient times liquor was used to lower a person’s inhibitions in attempt to bring out the truth. The first recorded use of truth serum for a criminal case in New York in 1903. Ether was used to induce a confession from a police officer for killing his wife.

Although truth-inducing drugs were not widely used for criminal cases, the first drug to be officially adopted by police departments was scopolamine. It was a depressant and sleeping agent. Scopolamine was developed by a Texas doctor named Robert House in 1922. He claimed that patients always answered truthfully under the drugs influence.

By the 1930’s, Scopolamine had been abandoned in favor of the safer drugs sodium amtal and sodium pentothal. The theory was that once you were under the influence of the drugs, you lost the complex brain functions needed to sustain lies. You were reduced to telling only the truth. It has also been said that the drugs would help a person recall long lost memories.

The inconsistencies of the results led police departments to eventually abandon the practice of using truth serums. The government continued experimenting with drugs and tried behavior modifications using LSD. In the 50’s, a research program called MK-ultra was created by the government to try and create a successful truth serum. The program ran through the mid 60’s, but a safe and successful drug eluded them.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that information obtained by the use of truth serum is not admissible in court on the grounds of self-incrimination. Drugs used for truth serums have never been proven to be completely effective. The information extracted by people under the influence has turned out to be inconsistent in many cases. However, many countries still use various kinds of truth serums to this day.