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CIA Considered Administering “Truth Serum” to 9/11 Detainees

HeadlineNov 15, 2018

And a newly declassified report reveals the CIA considered using a so-called truth serum drug to interrogate terror suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The report, released Tuesday, details a research program known as Project Medication, in which the CIA worked with medical professionals who ultimately decided against asking the Justice Department to approve the use of any such drugs. Attorney Dror Ladin of the American Civil Liberties Union says the program led doctors to violate their Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm.” And he said the CIA has a history of experimenting with drugs on detainees.

Dror Ladin: “So the CIA would apply LSD to people without them knowing about it. They would inject people with barbiturates without them knowing about it. And the same sort of thing was happening in the Soviet Bloc. And when the public found out about this in Senate hearings in the '70s, there was a tremendous blowback against the CIA, and the CIA vowed to never do it again, and all these prohibitions were placed. You know, just 30 years later, the CIA was considering it again. And in a very twisted way, some of the medical professionals convinced themselves that if they found a truth serum, then maybe they could stop torturing people; so, instead, they'd just be injecting them with drugs against their will.”

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