CIA explored using ‘truth serum’ on terror suspects, tortured them instead
- Existence of the drug research programme disclosed in a once-classified report
- Idea was shelved after Justice Department had previously provided legal memos justifying the use of torture like waterboarding
The CIA explored finding a “truth serum” to use on terrorism detainees in the years after the September 11 attacks, according to a declassified report that was released as part of a lengthy Freedom of Information lawsuit.
The report, written by a chief CIA medical official whose identity has not been disclosed, detailed that Project Medication, as the effort was named, was shelved in 2003.
But not before the agency doctors had explored whether “drug-based interviews” would make for a less harsh alternative to the brutal interrogation practices like sleep deprivation, small-space confinement and waterboarding that the CIA employed in the years after September 11, tactics that have come to be widely referred to as torture.
The report noted the agency’s previous forays into the field of truth serums, citing a 1961 report that concluded that individuals who could withstand interrogations would probably still be able to hold out in altered mental states.
It also cited the CIA’s use of LSD and other drugs during its notorious MK-ULTRA project in the 1950s and 1960s, when the agency conducted 149 experiments in mind control, including the use of 25 unwitting subjects.
A drug called Versed, known by its generic name as midazolam, was identified by the report as the preferred drug for truth inducement.
