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The plot of the 1961 action film The Guns of Navarone revolves around a Second World War British commando raid on the island of Navarone in the Aegean Sea to destroy two giant radar-controlled guns the Germans had installed to target Allied ships.
Both the raid and the island of Navarone are fictional, but one part of the story is rooted in fact. A member of the team is captured by the Germans and is interrogated after being injected with a “truth serum” that contains scopolamine. This chemical was indeed used during the war by both sides in an attempt to extract information, although its effectiveness is questionable.
Along with the structurally similar atropine, scopolamine occurs naturally in plants of the nightshade family. Both compounds have potent physiological effects because of their ability to block the action of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is involved in biological processes ranging from regulating temperature and heart rate to controlling salivation, sweating and brain function.
In the early 20th century, obstetrician Dr. Robert House noted that scopolamine given as a sedative during childbirth induces a state of twilight sleep during which women answered questions very candidly. He suggested that the drug be used to interrogate criminals, but subsequent experiments showed that while subjects did become more talkative, there was no evidence that they were more truthful.
While the use of scopolamine as a truth serum is highly suspect, its ability to alter mental function and behaviour is factual.
In 1705, historian Robert Beverley provided a classic account of such effects with his description of the escapades of British soldiers who in 1676 had the task of suppressing a rebellion by American colonists in Jamestown, Virginia. The soldiers had consumed a meal prepared from plants that included Datura stramonium, all parts of which contain scopolamine. Beverley described how the soldiers turned into “natural fools” and exhibited bizarre, frenetic behaviour, grinning and pawing at each other, totally incapable of carrying out their mission. Yet, after several days they “returned to themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.” The plant that had caused this strange effect came to be known as “Jamestown weed,” eventually transmogrified to “jimson weed.” A more fitting name, “Devil’s trumpet,” was later coined.
The plant can indeed be devilish as exemplified by a report in 1883 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that documented its use by criminals in Mecca who enticed pilgrims to eat food prepared with the leaves, roots and seeds of Datura stramonium. As the victims fell into a scopolamine-induced stupor, they were robbed of their possessions, left only with a memento of their experience in the form of dilated pupils, dryness of the mouth, an ardent thirst, elevated pulse and temperature, and muscular inco-ordination resembling drunkenness. These are classic “anticholinergic” symptoms caused by some substance blocking receptors for acetylcholine in the nervous system.
Taking a page from history, American criminals also pounced on scopolamine in the 1970s. A virtual epidemic of robberies in New York City targeted tourists and visiting businessmen. The scenario usually involved attractive women approaching men in a bar who were open to an evening of fun. Instead, they ended up in a disheveled state in a park or hotel room robbed of their valuables as well as of their memories of what had happened.
Some victims were taken to New York City’s Bellevue Hospital where the task of investigating the strange epidemic fell to emergency physician Dr. Lewis Goldfrank. Recalling a mantra from medical school that a patient who is “red as a beet, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, mad as a hatter and hotter than hell” is probably suffering from impaired acetylcholine activity, he suspected the men had ingested some sort of anticholinergic toxin.
Dr. Goldfrank was fortunate. A glass used by one of the victims had been recovered with a small amount of liquid still remaining in it. This was subjected to thin-layer chromatography, a technique in which a drop of an unknown substance is applied to a glass plate that is coated with silica gel. The plate is then placed in a jar containing a small amount of solvent at the bottom that rises up the plate via capillary action carrying the sample substance with it. The unknown substance can then be identified by comparing the distance it travels up the plate with that of an authentic sample of the substance it is believed to be.
In this way, Dr. Goldfrank was able to determine that scopolamine, probably extracted from medications used by ophthalmologists to dilate the pupil of the eye, had been slipped into the victim’s drink.
It is not only the criminal element that is aware of the properties of scopolamine. Adolescents also discovered that drinking a tea made from the leaves or seeds of Datura can result in a high. Unfortunately, they also discovered that dosage is difficult to control, with many ending up in hospital with rapid heartbeat, agitation, fever, extreme dry mouth, amnesia and a disturbing hallucination of tiny “Lilliputians” crawling all over their body.
Psychotic episodes triggered by scopolamine are not a relic of history. “Devil’s Breath,” as the substance is known in Columbia, is currently used there, as it was in New York, for nefarious purposes. Numerous robberies and rapes, by some account up to 50,000 a year, are reported in Columbia. The problem has become so acute that authorities have put out warnings about going to nightclubs alone, leaving food or drink unattended and leaving bars with strangers.
While there is no question that scopolamine, which in Columbia is extracted from the seeds of the Borrachero tree, is a chilling tool used by the criminal element, there are also urban myths that have arisen about the substance. For example, there is no truth to the rumour that touching a card tainted with scopolamine can turn people into zombies or that blowing the powder into a victim’s face is a way to achieve control over their mind.
To further explore the effects of scopolamine without taking any risk, you can stream The Guns of Navarone, a great film, or pick up Raymond Chandler’s classic novel Farewell, My Lovely, in which detective Philip Marlowe gives a picturesque description of being doped with the drug.
