Scopolamine drug takes away your free will?

[JJM 777]

From the Daily Mail (note: from the Daily Mail):

Scopolamine drug, nicknamed 'Devil's Breath', can block your free will, and even wipe out your memory. Scopolamine can be blown in the face of a passer-by on the street, and within minutes, that person is under the drug’s effect and you can guide them wherever you want, as if they were a child.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143584/Scopolamine-Powerful-drug-growing-forests-Colombia-ELIMINATES-free-will.html?ITO=socialnet-googleplus-dailymail

---

Would require a very pin-pointed paralyzing effect on some brain lobes, without much affecting the others, to cause a person to be able to walk and behave quite normally, yet not having much of any thoughts or willpower, a bit like hypnotized.

[Professor Yaffle]

I guess I'd better cut back on those travel sickness pills...





http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/burundanga.asp
http://themilligan.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/e-mail-hoaxes-essex-and-west-midlands-police/
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/crime/a/burundanga_2.htm

[Soapy Sam]

The reality is far worse...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine

[calebprime]

I guess I'd better cut back on those travel sickness pills...





http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/burundanga.asp
http://themilligan.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/e-mail-hoaxes-essex-and-west-midlands-police/
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/crime/a/burundanga_2.htm

I was going to say the same as Yaffle. Wouldn't be the first time that happened. Scopolamine trans-derm is the only thing that works for me. I'm so prone to motion sickness that the ferry from Martha's Vineyard has made me sick for twelve hours afterwards, and shaky-cam...well, don't get me started.

With those scope skin patches, I'm king of the ocean. Capn' Cal.

But the effect is probably dose-related. Higher dose, you get a different effect.

I don't generally allow people on the street to get in my face and breathe their putrid breath at me. Who does?

[Halfcentaur]

I used to take copious amounts of [SNIP] as a teenager specifically to trip scopolamine. I must have tripped on the stuff about 50 times in 9th grade.

It's like the classic datura or thorn apple trip. Complete deliriant.

It gives you some of the most completely vidid auditory and visual hallucinations possible. As real as day, things you can stand up and walk around and see at different angles.

Jelly like mirage fumes trickling down walls and covering your hands in an aura that crackles with streams and bolts, cob webs and cotton webbed between your fingers, you hear your name and other random babble coming from all over the place. You see tree branches droop down that could not hold the weight of a squirrel none the less with your best friend sitting on it as his neck stretches down to the ground like rubber.

You also constantly forget where you are, who you may be, and what you are doing, which was kind of fun. Sometimes it took 30 seconds to a minute to remember.

I've taken black out doses on accident and have baby sit friends who did as well.

You could pretty much make someone do anything if they are on enough of the stuff, but it would be difficult. Sort of like dealing with a confused alzeimer's patient. They constantly forget the last thing you told them and what is happening, getting distracted by anything. You also get terrible vertigo, sometimes running head first at full speed for 20 feet just trying not to fall on your face before slamming into a fence.

You babble about the most random words. "rusty buckets and pales", "rutabaga", "trying to find your map flask". Completely random dream like babble.

The interesting thing is how people often share the same basic types of visual hallucination, usually there is no color, it's all clear looking mirage like fumes and jelly in the shape of people, like the predator from the movie Predator when it is cloaked. But sometimes you see clearly people you know, trying to get your attention. Sometimes people you've never seen. When the things are clearly irrational, you usually recognize they are not real and proceed to be amazed by their realistic properties, but sometimes it's like a dream and you mistakenly interact with the people and things.

You also see crickets and little dots all over you and other things, and I've seen a peice of paper turn into rolling ocean of waves. And I've seen a translucent cyclone or water spout about 3 feet tall churning all around my room. I could follow and look at from the sides and from above down into the center of the twisting clear substance. Statues eyes will open and close, or stand with their legs apart before shifting on their legs and going back into their pose.

The most common thing people see is what looks like veins in white surfaces or within the wall, almost like a tv screen with an image on it, the muscles and veins pumping and throbbing in heart beat like rythm with cellular looking particles streaming down the chambers of the circulatory system.

[SNIP], the more you take the more you see. It last about 3 hours with the visions, then about 12 hours of feeling like ultra bored crap.

The downsides, it is very uncomfortable. Your mucous membranes go completely dry. You can barely swallow. And there is a terrible sort of flu like feeeling of crap you have for about 24 hours afterwards.

It is not a pleasant experience, but for the amazingly vivid hallucinations.

You are left confused in an almost half asleep state, a waking dream.

I once had some totally a-hole friends messing with my head one morning, waking me up to tell me it was time for school (on a saturday morning) and watching me take all my prescription meds at the time and get my shoes on, before I would lose train of thought and fall back to sleep. They then would wake me up and repeat the scenario. I must have taken my lithium and paxil and xanax for the day 5 times in a row.

It's a peculiar and unpleasant substance. But it's a great anticholinergic in tiny amounts for congestion and motion sickness.


Removed references to specific substances

[quarky]

Jimson weed is too weird for me.
people I know who've taken it generally end up far away and naked, a day later.

[Bikewer]

Years ago, it was a standard item in spy novels. The bad guys were forever giving the stuff to people either for interrogation or kidnapping purposes.

[Stomatopoda]

If it's like every other anticholinergic...
Tiny dose = drowsiness and allergy relief
Small dose = more intense (but harder to reach) orgasms, body load and tachycardia, auditory hallucinations
Medium dose = spiders, smoke, heiroglyphics, shadow etc in your peripheral vision, impaired short-term memory
High dose = vivid hallucinations including full conversations with people who aren't present, dreaming while awake, completely blanked short-term memory, imagining you went through an entire day when you were actually just trying to urinate for half an hour, inability to do math for several days afterward, risk of stroke

[JJM 777]

The bad guys were forever giving the stuff to people either for interrogation or kidnapping purposes.
Could have been the good guys as well....

[calebprime]

Jimson weed is too weird for me.
people I know who've taken it generally end up far away and naked, a day later.

So you're saying what, that you advocate the use of other drugs? :clmad:

[Tacita]

They actually used this in an episode of Castle. I thought they made it up for the show.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You have to take a ton of the stuff to hallucinate. Kids I know used to do it in high school with dramamine. It's the belladonna in it.

[quarky]

You have to take a ton of the stuff to hallucinate. Kids I know used to do it in high school with dramamine. It's the belladonna in it.

I beg to differ. Scopolamine is one of the many alkaloids found in datura. perhaps in the o.t.c. preps, it takes a boat-load, but certainly not with the plant.


calebprime,

i want to see a lawyer.
I can't remember what I advocate.

[Jeff Corey]

Jimson weed ( Datura stramonium) also contains hyoscyamine, and atropine, especially the seeds and flowers.

[Weak Kitten]

The real question is, does it actually work as claimed?

The article I saw on TV today claimed that it could be used to get people to let you into their house, give you their credit card numbers and all sorts of other things. All this just from a quick blast in the face.

Frankly I cannot imagine it being that strong and not effecting the person doing the blowing for one thing. Also I am surprised that I've never heard of this drug before. If it was really so effective you would think that it would be used all over the world, at least recreationally.

[fuelair]

Scop an' datura make you zombie, man!! Don' need no death fo' dat!!

[quarky]

The real question is, does it actually work as claimed?

The article I saw on TV today claimed that it could be used to get people to let you into their house, give you their credit card numbers and all sorts of other things. All this just from a quick blast in the face.

Frankly I cannot imagine it being that strong and not effecting the person doing the blowing for one thing. Also I am surprised that I've never heard of this drug before. If it was really so effective you would think that it would be used all over the world, at least recreationally.

There's lots of potent alkaloids in plants that aren't very 'recreational'.
At least 5 common weeds that grow on my farm will seriously mess you up, or even kill a cow. For the most part, folks have figured out which ones are of value, regardless of legality. Jimson weed and morning glory vines are pernicious weeds; both will alter your state big time, but in a horrible way.

[Stomatopoda]

The real question is, does it actually work as claimed?

The article I saw on TV today claimed that it could be used to get people to let you into their house, give you their credit card numbers and all sorts of other things. All this just from a quick blast in the face.

No way. You're likely to forget which house is even yours, let alone remember a number. Pretty likely to see the attacker's face turn into a mass of spiders the instant they step into any shadow. Also, the stuff doesn't take effect instantly, and you would definitely know something was wrong. If you weren't expecting the effects, you'd probably think you were dying and call 911.

There's a reason why mostly only bored teenagers mess with deliriants.

[Halfcentaur]

T If it was really so effective you would think that it would be used all over the world, at least recreationally.

It is quite common. Google dramamine/diphenhydramine/bendryl tripping. Or check erowid. It was common in the 90s.

The problem is, it's not anywhere near consistent for use as a truth drug. You can get people to do things, but you can't get them to do whatever you design. For instance, I've had a friend that was blacked out on scopolamine trying to get into my neighbors truck, thinking it was his car. He was trying to find his "map flask".
I managed to get him out of the car, I could have gotten him to take off all his clothes if I was patient and kept on insisting to him over time, but you could not force the person to remember a complicated password or stream of numbers without completely relying on random factors. Most likely, the person is just going to babble and do things like they are sleep walking.

If they are not careful, at a lucent waking moment you might actually ask them something and get a truthful answer, but it's going to likely be on accident if you do.

It's basically like relying on someone to talk in their sleep.

There may be threshold doses, just between being able to somewhat keep control of yourself without blacking out that someone may be able to ask you questions and you're just cognizant enough to both understand the question and also forget the consequences of what you are revealing, but this is not consistent enough to be used as a truth serum except for in television in my opinion.

[quarky]

Papa's got a brand new bag.

[catsmate1]

The real question is, does it actually work as claimed?

The article I saw on TV today claimed that it could be used to get people to let you into their house, give you their credit card numbers and all sorts of other things. All this just from a quick blast in the face.
Sort of. There's some truth in the story; scopolamine in conjunction with other drugs like morphine have been used as "truth drugs" inducing a docile and compliant state in which the victim can be questioned. However the "spray in the face" bit is utter rubbish, the drugs needed to be injected.

[Soapy Sam]

Sort of. There's some truth in the story; scopolamine in conjunction with other drugs like morphine have been used as "truth drugs" inducing a docile and compliant state in which the victim can be questioned.


This may also be achieved with a nice cup of tea, some chocolate biscuits and a comfy chair.

[Dr. Imago]

It's been a while, but I gave scopolamine in the trauma bay to patients during my training. We affectionately called it "the mind eraser". One of my partners still periodically uses it. I don't. Better, more predictable drugs in the toolbox.

~Dr. Imago

[MuDPhuD]

It's been a while, but I gave scopolamine in the trauma bay to patients during my training. We affectionately called it "the mind eraser". One of my partners still periodically uses it. I don't. Better, more predictable drugs in the toolbox.

~Dr. Imago

It is used during an anesthetic for the same purpose (memory eraser) in cases, usually trauma, where the patient's physiology is so tenuous that the usual anesthetics cannot be used.

A dose of 0.4 mg IV will usually result in greater than 24 hours of complete memory loss. It comes in a 1cc vial. It's quite potent and could easily be snorted up the nose with probably quite effective absorbtion. I'm less convinced about the effectiveness of aerisolized droplets. The effect would obviously depend on the dose which will depend on how deep a breath you take at the instant you are sprayed.

If you want to kidnap someone you should use ketamine. It has largely the same effects described above for scopalamine, with the exception that it causes increased secretions (drooling) and it comes in a very potent form with can be injected IM. In the right dose it just makes the patient stare, but they maintain muscle tone, keep breathing, and could be led around by the hand "like a child". (Unless they freak out from the hallucinations)