Intelligence agencies using “ truth serums ” vocalise like it belongs in the departed historic period of Cold War spies , but a freshly released story shows that the US was of late toying with the idea in the paranoid post-9/11 creation of terrorism .
Thedeclassified written report , only in public released thanks to a federal lawsuit by theAmerican Civil Liberties Union(ACLU ) , has disclose the secret history of a CIA research course of study to find “ truth serum ” between 2002 and 2003 . The heading of “ Project Medication ” was to find a mind - altering drug that could be used to jimmy out information on potential tone-beginning from terror suspects shortly after the September 11 attacks .
During this fourth dimension , the CIA studied record of old Soviet drug experiments , including theinfamous MK - Ultra programand other discredit human experiments from the Cold War , to see whether mind - falsify drug could be used to aid their interrogation procedure .
larn from the legacy of premature enquiry projects , the study concludes that midazolam could be the drug of choice . This is a ethical drug sedative , marketed under the name verse , that ’s used to treat anxiety and trouble with sleep . It also has a strange event on computer memory , appearing to temporarily cause amnesia and halt the mental capacity ’s power to form young memories . However , it remains unclear how the drug could be used to coerce entropy out of detainee under interrogation . Despite the menacing mission it was nearly tax with , midazolam is on theWorld Health Organization ’s List of Essential Medicines , which documents the most efficient and safest medicine needed in a health system .
Fortunately , the CIA ’s “ Project Medication ” never come to fruition due to a number of legal problems and was promptly shelved by the CIA at the start of 2003 .
“ Versed was considered possibly deserving a trial , ” the story study , “ if definitive legal sanction first were obtained .
“ There were at least two legal obstacles : a prohibition against medical experimentation on prisoners and a prohibition on interrogational use of ‘ thinker - vary drug ’ or those which ‘ profoundly altered the horse sense . ’ ”
As the report designate , medical professional had an “ intense ” and “ blanket ” intimacy in the CIA ’s interrogation and detainment computer program between 2002 and 2007 , overseeing at least 97 detainee being held and interrogated in 10 top - secret CIA facilities , all in the name of counterterrorism . According to the report , these aesculapian professionals played a cardinal part in “ legitimizing the program . ”
“ Thanks to an ACLU victory in federal court , we get it on much more about how CIA doctors violated the aesculapian oath to ' do no scathe , ' ” Dror Ladin , Staff Attorney at the ACLU National Security Project , compose ina blog post .
“ While Project Medication never got off the ground , CIA medical professional remained decisive participants in experimenting with torture . ”
