Al Qaeda Suspect: U.S. Government Gave Me LSD

[ECH1969]

Jose Padilla, 35, was arrested in 2002 on suspicions that he was plotting a radioactive explosion, also known as a dirty bomb. He spent several years in a military jail in Charleston, S.C., without facing criminal charges. As legal wrangling over his fate continued, prosecutors in Miami charged him late last year with providing material support to a terrorist group and conspiring to murder, maim, and kidnap Americans abroad.

Lawyers for Padilla, who was born in Brooklyn and converted to Islam while in prison for gang-related crimes, made the claims of torture in a motion filed last week with a federal court in Florida.

"He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution," the chief federal defender in Miami, Michael Caruso, wrote. "Additionally, Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations."

A top Al Qaeda leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, reportedly admitted during interrogations that he tasked Padilla with locating radioactive materials and scouting out locations for a dirty bomb. However, the pending indictment against Padilla makes no mention of such a plot.

http://www.nysun.com/article/41305

[davidinalameda]

1. LSD is fairly far from PCP

at least in my understanding

I think this just goes to show that not too much he says can be believed

[NOLADEM]

8. Your understanding is incorrect

Both induce hallucinations, paranoia, delusions, messianic visions, false memories, emotional volitility, blackouts, and you become easily suggestable.

Sodium Pent. also does similar things to you.

Do you really discount the possibility our government drugs terror suspects?

We torture, beat, shock, humiliate, terrorize with dogs and guns, kill, bomb, rape relatives, simulate execution, lie, put menstral blood on foreheads, and on and on. With all of these behaviors, HOW could you possibly doubt that we would drug someone with 'truth serum'? HOW?

Something you have a poor understanding of goes to show NOTHING but what you don't understand.

I have NO doubt Padilla is being tortured and drugged. He is being punished for fighting for his rights. They want him to roll over and go away to an illegal incarceration in the netherworld, facts be damned.

This guy is nothing but a typical street thug. Perhaps he deserves jail, perhaps not. The important fact is that WE DON'T KNOW what he did or deserves because our government refuses to provide due process to the man, partly because they have little to try him on, and partly because their unlawful treatment of the man has destroyed any ability they might have had to find out.

[Zensea]

15. Actually they are quite a bit different

Unless you have actually done both, I'd advise you to think twice about equating them.
LSD doesn't particularly induce hallucinations, it's a psychedelic.
And although each does have the possibility of doing what would be described with the same words, the quality of the comparative hallucinations or delusions or memories etc. is quite a bit different.

Plus the way the two interact with the body and the brain is completely different.

PCP Chemistry and pharmacology
Chemically and pharmacologically it is a member of the family of dissociative anesthetics, which also includes ketamine, tiletamine and high doses of dextromethorphan. Although the primary psychoactive effects of the drug only last hours, total elimination from the body is prolonged, typically extending over weeks.
Toxicology
PCP is a neurotoxin. It is more toxic than other dissociatives and its toxicity is more complex. The damages concern different brain regions and probably affect diverse receptor systems.

LSD, by contrast is generally considered to be non-toxic, it passes through your system quickly.It is not an anesthetic. It is not in the same "family" of drugs. Lots of differences that I'm not going to bother to detail.


I don't doubt in the slightest that Padilla is being tortured and drugged either, but that is a different question than the states the two drugs put you into.

[saigon68]

17. He's lucky they didn't cut his Nuts Off

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. LOL

You literally don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

It's quite funny.

[0007]

27. You have no idea what you're talking about man......

Where in the hell did you read that garbage from?

[TheWraith]

2. That would be a retarded thing to do.

LSD and PCP don't have any particular bent towards making people honest. And even if they did, the mind-altering properties of those drugs would quite likely make it impossible to acquire any actual information.

If you're doing a narco-interrogation, you use sodium amytal, or something else which induces a semi-hypnotic state, not a hallucenogen.

[lvx35]

3. I can't imagine giving somebody LSD as a truth serum.

Hell, you'd probably start believing your cover story yourself!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

5. Read the article I posted below (post #4).

The CIA has tried it as a truth serum in the past, and it resulted in people admitting to crimes they didn't commit.

[lvx35]

18. Woah! Now that's scary shit.

And probably just what it was about...

[htuttle]

13. Who said anything about truth?

They were looking for a confession. Truth had nothing to do with it.

[woodsprite]

16. Maybe that was the idea. n/t

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Well, the CIA has been experimenting with LSD as a truth serum for years.

So I really wouldn't be surprised if they gave him LSD.

However, LSD and PCP are very, very different drugs and they aren't really easily confused. LSD is a psychadelic and PCP is a psychadelic dissociative (far more dangerous & unpredictable).

Here's an article on experiments conducted by our CIA and Britains's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, using LSD as a possible "truth drug." There's actually a lot of info out there on this.

MI6 pays out over secret LSD mind control tests

· 'Truth drug' trials men win out of court settlement
· Porton Down accused of duping volunteers in 50s

Rob Evans
Friday February 24, 2006
The Guardian

The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has paid thousands of pounds in compensation to servicemen who were fed LSD without their consent in clandestine mind-control experiments in the 1950s. MI6 has agreed an out-of-court settlement with the men, who said they were duped into taking part in the experiments and had waited years to learn the truth.

The men experienced vivid hallucinogenic trips when given the drugs. One recalled seeing distorted "Salvador Dali-style faces and cracks in people's faces". MI6 is also paying the cost of the men's lawsuit, which alleged assault.
Don Webb, a former airman, said yesterday: "I feel vindicated; this has been a classic cover-up for years. They took a liberty."

The LSD experiments were conducted in 1953 and 1954 by scientists working for MI6 who were trying to discover a "truth drug" to compel prisoners to confess.

MI6, then led by Sir John Sinclair, was worried that the Russians had a secret drug to brainwash cold war enemies. The service had seen captured American servicemen confessing to "crimes" during the Korean war and calling for a US surrender. A Hungarian dissident had admitted to crimes he did not commit.

MI6's counterparts at the CIA also did LSD experiments on men without their knowledge to try to control their minds. Both agencies finally concluded that LSD could not be used to manipulate people.

<snip>

[Epiphany4z]

6. My Uncle

was in the air force in the 60s they where doing experiments with LCD back then. He was part of it...long story..but.he ended up leaving the service and loosing the memory of year of his life the year his son was born. The man was very smart knew 7 languages. I remember him showing me how hard Russian was , teaching me spanish, helping my aunt with her high school german.

There are all kinds of family rumors about what happened to him what he was being groomed for.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

7. Wow, there must have been a lot more going on in addition to LSD.

I know plenty of old hippies (spent too much time working at a health food store) and none of them lost a whole year of their life from just LSD.

Here's a video of the British government testing LSD on their troops...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYQZ1xI9Pg

Here's one of the US Army.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4N73wXq2K0

[coalition_unwilling]

23. Give me Librium or give me Meth! n/t

[Epiphany4z]

24. the lost year

was from the debriefing

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. The Air Force had Liquid Crystal Displays in the 60's?!?

You'd think the price would have come down by now...

;-)

[Earth_First]

9. Shades of MKULTRA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

[clixtox]

10. 1gram of LSD + 1ounce of PCP = 10,000...

"hits" of what was marketed as "Mescaline" in the 70s. Millions and millions of these "hits" were made into tablets on home made "tabbing" machines and distributed all over the world, mostly out of LA and the SF Bay area. Because the "active ingredients" were usually of poor quality (ie. not "white") the tablets were usually colored brown and the product was often called "Chocolate Mescaline". The tablets were larger than those with only LSD inside because of larger mass of the PCP requiring more of the various ingredients (usually a lot of "Milkman" brand, dried milk powder) to make the tabs stay intact and not crumble during distribution.

While I never indulged myself, the experience was positive enough that there was a constant and consistently large demand. Incredible quantities of this product were distributed over a few years, perhaps you saw some or tried it yourself...

LSD is usually a confrontation with oneself where the brutal truth about who you actually are, warts and all, is made clear, you cannot BS yourself. This peek through the veil of self delusions we all have constructed sometimes would cause "freak-outs". There is no prevaricating to one's self on LSD. That does not mean that you couldn't tell another person whatever you felt would be the most opportune reply when queried. In fact, it is easy to fantasize and dis-associate, outside of your head, telling an interrogator anything that came to mind(which could easily be pretty fantastic, non-reality based hallucinations).

This process of self-examination, which is pretty uncontrollable without a guide or therapist, is what makes LSD the most efficacious therapeutic substance ever discovered. I was able to stop some self destructive behaviors 25 years ago with the assistance of the insights gleaned from an "acid trip". I imagine that the reason it is still not being researched is due to how powerful and useful it is for changing ones perceptions, it can often be a "radicalizing" experience. Many folks, like I was, were illuminated and the same old BS just didn't make sense anymore.

Turn on, Tune in and Drop out!!!

Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD, celebrated his 100th birthday in January '06. Is LSD also the fountain of youth? Probably not. Is LSD a substance that cries out for more research? Without a doubt! Are the Army or the (so-called) Intelligence services where this research should occur? That is truly crazy!!!

[Earth_First]

11. I'd be hard pressed to believe that Hoffman 'found' LSD

Muir Beach was a wonderful era of self-expression and exploration guided by the likes of Leary, Kesey, Cassidy, and a whole array of 'counter-culture' icons and revolutionaries. I attribute the discovery not certainly to one individual, but to the entire era which was guided and influenced by us all.

[htuttle]

12. ??

Albert Hoffman was a Swiss Chemist who was trying to synthesize a heart drug when he happened upon the formula for LSD-25. He accidentally absorbed some through his skin the first time, IIRC, leading to the now infamous 'longest bicycle ride in history' on the way home. He wasn't at all part of the counter culture (until much later, when he was lauded for his discovery).

Maybe you're thinking of 'Abbie Hoffman', similar name, but very different person?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. And none of them would have "discovered" it, had Hoffman not MADE it.

http://www.hofmann.org/

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. Hoffman discovered LSD at Sandoz Labs in Swizterland in the 1930's

While researching ergot synthetics for labor pains. This is established fact.

Read about it here:

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child.htm

Leary was a douchebag. That's my opinion. Leary's first trip wasn't even on LSD. He got psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico a few years after Gordon Wasson (not a hippie, but an investment banker and amateur mycologist) convinced a local curandera to allow Westerners to participate in a mushroom ceremony.

[DrunkenMaster]

26. then you don't know your history

Hoffman created the compound while researching medicine.

[clixtox]

30. Alan Watts...

actually lived above Muir Beach for awhile after leaving Sausalito, I believe.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. Did he thank them?

If not, that's rude.

[DrunkenMaster]

25. Details of MK Ultra

Those of you who don't think the government would do such a thing or that LSD and other psychedelics "don't work" as torture devices need to wake the f*ck up and read your history. Here is a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

Central Intelligence Agency documents suggest that the agency considered and explored uses of radiation for the purpose of mind control as part of MKULTRA. Other early efforts focused on LSD, which appears to have formed the majority of research as time went on. Experiments included administering the drug to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions, usually without the subject's knowledge.

The experiments often took a sadistic turn. Gottlieb was known to torture victims by locking them in sensory deprivation chambers while under the psychedelic influence of LSD, or to make recordings of psychiatric patients' therapy sessions, and then play a tape loop of the patient's most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD.

(edit)

Another technique was connecting a barbiturate IV into one arm and an amphetamine IV into the other. The barbiturates were released into the subject first, and as soon as the subject began to fall asleep, the amphetamines were released. The subject would begin babbling incoherently at this point, and it was sometimes possible to ask questions and get useful answers. This treatment was discarded as it often resulted in the death of the patient from physical side effects of the drug combination, thus making further interrogation impossible. Other experiments involved heroin, mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, marijuana, alcohol, and sodium pentothal.

[carzen]

28. nothing would surprise me at this point

[Le Taz Hot]

29. And this is a bad thing?

(Sorry. Couldn't help myself.)