The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
The following link is to a little documentary on Scopolamine and it's production, I found it interesting and worthy of a share =)
disclaimer It is a bit graphic, so I would say it borders NSFW, but I will let a mod decide that and move it accordingly. Maybe this should be added to the list of drugs that should never be legalized..
"You've never heard of scopolamine. It's synthesized from plants, like cocaine. It even looks exactly like cocaine. But unlike coke, it'll turn you into an insane zombie and probably kill you. There's a reason they call it "the Devil's Breath." It's hard to even call scopolamine a drug, in the usual sense of the word—nobody is going to pass it around at a party or buy it at a club. But criminals will use it to steal all of your worldly possessions, Nazis used it for interrogations, the CIA tested it as truth serum, and indigenous Colombian royalty would have their families coerced into being buried alive under the influence of the stuff. VICE sent a crew down to the jungle to investigate, and turned up some pretty brain curdling stories. Sadly, when they actually do get their hands on the stuff, they chicken out and flush it down the toilet at the end, like a scene from Cops. Though by that point, it's hard to blame them."
Last edited by hookedonhelping; 15-05-2012 at 02:47.
Reason: more thoughts..
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
It's common where I live. My cousin got it and he was with his girlfriend thank god, she noticed he was drugged and took him to the ER. Somebody was surely after his belongings. He said the only contact he had with a person was when one of them handed him a flyer at a mall. He never drank anything.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hookedonhelping
Can you elaborate? Have you or a friend tried this before? If so can you confirm the effects as portrayed in the video to be accurate?
My post said nothing about the effects of Scopolomine. I was simple making the point that this is an old VICE magazine doc. and the plant that Scopolamine comes from is in no way related to the plant Cocaine comes from.
I have no doubt that the effects of Scopolamine portrayed in the video are accurate.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
Quote:
I was simple making the point that this is an old VICE magazine doc. and the plant that Scopolamine comes from is in no way related to the plant Cocaine comes from.
Im not sure it ever said it was "related" to cocaine. It IS in fact extracted in a similar fashion, "like cocaine". As the text you quoted explains.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hookedonhelping
Im not sure it ever said it was "related" to cocaine. It IS in fact extracted in a similar fashion, "like cocaine". As the text you quoted explains.
May be it's worded poorly, but the following is misleading to me.
Quote:
It's synthesized from plants, like cocaine.
I don't get that it is extracted in a similar manner as Cocaine in this statement. It sounds like they are saying it's "made" from plants like Cocaine, and some how related to Cocaine.
Any ways, it's a good doc. I didn't mean to get of topic like this.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
Ah, I see how you misinterpreted it..
It is a very good article.. the part about the guy explaining that he tripped for 17 days on it.. very bizarre, and his friend who is permanently screwed up by it.. wow. I have heard of Datura, and seen scopolamine referenced before, but never had the misfortune of trying it. I have zero interest after seeing this documentary, but do find the history of Datura very interesting, ie witches and the like.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
I know some people who used this for magical purposes... It sounded insane. I guess it is one of those things that would make for good stories later though even though it's not "fun" in any way.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
The phrase is not mis-leading at all. That is 100% perfect grammar of how you would express that notion. In no way, read with proper grammar rules, does that sentence implicate anything close to the substance being related to cocaine, merely the concept that production comes from a plant and the appearance of a white powder is close to cocaine look. /grammar nazi off. I'm horrible at grammar, I don't mean anything nasty by it, just saying =)
Also, I am not sure why there is so much discussion about what it is unless you didn't watch the video. It is Datura. It is just Datura taken through a man made process to produce it into a powder. The guy in the video mentions "It's scientific name is Datura".
In the video they mention (that I recall off hand):
Blip from Erowid under Scopolamine - Scopolamine is a naturally occurring deliriant found in many solanaceous plants such as datura and belladonna.
Scopolamine does not have a genus, species etc - it is the chemical they extract from Datura/containing plants. This is a partial guess from me but, in the video, they mostly mention the 'tree' it comes from. That would hold a different name than the plants that grow on the tree. May be why you hear the word Datura less. Everything mentioned of course botanically belongs to the family Solanaceae. They are dealing with the same ballpark anyway it works.
I imagine this stuff is so insane because they extract it into a powder, as shown in the video. As if eating a plant itself may not be strong enough. Who knows what sort of doses are getting delivered in powder. As also mentioned in the video, many heart attacks are reported. Which sounds like a normal overdose of Datura. Which because of it being a pure powder sounds like an easier result to have. They claim even the scent of the pure powder is enough to induce alteration. That 21 year old girl testified that she used methods that merely involved the other person smelling it. Although I don't understand how you intoxicate someone by making them smell something, from your own nose, and not intoxicate yourself. That part was a little Houdini sounding to me. Must take a pro, sounds like that could go wrong easily. Another bit on the heart attacks, I read one Datura story off erowid of someone who was ~24/25 who said when they first blacked out, then later blacked out and woke up in a hospital was told he suffered a mini heart attack and then a larger one. So there is definitely potential for this drug to give even a young person a straight up heart attack (not going to search all the Erowid trip reports to find it for now). Drug abuse or not, you in general just don't hear much about people under 30 having heart attacks. Again with the pure powder form, the fragile line between just enough and death sounds about just right that they describe in the video.
I was a bit amazed at, apparently, how consistent they make out the coercion part to be. Although, being someone who overdosed on 1000mg of Diph (I think Datura, from my readings, is way more hardcore than Diph) I can kind of see where that may come from. Although I did deny telling anyone I took drugs for a while, I did actually confess what I took. I remember even doing something weird like pulling out some personal written things and showing them to someone to make a point. Just bits of consciousness I remember. Who knows what I did blacked out - still many hours of conscious action I will never know. Sounds like these people.
There is one strong distinction I did pick out from these stories of this drug and what I recall from intense delirium from Diphenhydramine. Actually, one that even stands out to me a bit from what I read of Datura trips. A lot of the stories suggest they occurred because they appeared completely normal and followed what the others told them to do. When I was on 1000mg of Diph I could hardly walk through my own house without bumping into things, I'd be a terrible give away. Although the accuracy to perform tasks I believe as I know my black-out caused me to take more pills. Swallowing 8 gel cap pills is not something you do on accident. I was able to pull things out of hiding places, show people particular pages among several that I was referring to. But Diphenhydramine is perhaps a bad example for comparing say, motor function, as it's often used as a sleep aid in the first place. I wouldn't expect someone to walk well on a high dose of it. Perhaps this stuff is different.
Despite the mind fuck you can actually be quite articulate as the video said. But it also mentioned the problem they had with it being a truth serum was the hallucinations. Maybe they only aired the stories that included the least interference of hallucinations. That was my main trouble understanding. With deliriants being so unpredictable I find it interesting they make it out to be a drug people are so calm under the influence of. The potential for irrational hallucinations and 100% belief of them makes it seem harder than the video makes it out to be, to control someone under the influence of them. Especially if they are blacked out. But alas, I am no pro on the Datura family of stuff and never even been witness to someone on it. Opposed to Diph though, it seems like it doesn't come with the over sedation to the point of being unable to walk straight if these people really went unnoticed.
Pretty wild though. I have a feeling the video only showed good interviews though. It seems to perfect that this drug could have such a great success rate of producing a calm person who will follow your orders. Intense delirium isn't known for being the most calm of experiences. Unless there is something I am very unaware of that is unique to the extraction process of the chemical they produce. Does just the Scopolamine on it's own work differently than consuming just the plant or making teas out of the entire plant. They seemed very precise about how they make it. Is Scopolamine just one culprit among many in Datura plants that cause their results and Scopolamine is just a certain one that caters more to what they want? Perhaps they did single out just the right one to make all the criminal activity much easier to do with less chance of the psychotic reactions.
Re: The Most Terrifying Drug In The World! Scopolamine.
Wow, that was very interesting. I'm glad I heard about this because I feel like I could've easily been tricked if I had ever been somewhere where they use this. Many other websites seem to think this kind of thing is making mountains out of mounds and exploiting the urban legends about Scopolamine. I don't however, think these are tall-tales at all...More theatrical definitely. What confused me about this was that one person said she was given a low dose and could remember everything, she remembered not having any free will. Thats a bit odd how at a certain dose you do remember but amnesia occurs with regular to high doses. I wonder if that's true...I don't know what's scarier being awake without control or opposition or waking up on a park bench hearing about it. Whatever the case this was very informative. Thanks for sharing!
