It's a good thing I'm not a criminal mastermind...

[Mythsaje]

I was in the drugstore the other day with my wife, waiting for her to get a prescription filled when I noticed how all the stuff containing ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine were behind the counter now. Some woman had to fill out her name and address or some such to buy cold medicine.

What occured to me at that moment was that a unscrupulous genius could get a lot of mileage by coming up with a way to synthesize and concentrate caffeine into a potent street drug the same way they've used ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine to create meth.

I don't see why it's not possible.

A day later I had another, even more chilling thought. Why are we bothering to torture terror suspects when we have a simple way to get information that probably ISN'T covered by the Geneva convention?

Addict the prisoners to heroine or something similar, then cut it off until they tell what they know in a way that can be verified. Once it's verified, they can be given the drug again.

I'm hard pressed to think of why it wouldn't work. One hell of a lot better than torture. And it has the added benefit of creating a weakness in a potential enemy that could last forever.

Not that I'm recommending this course of action, mind you...just that I think it would most likely work.

[justabob]

1. It probably would work

But what I don't understand is why, IF it's information that they are after, they don't go with the old sodium pentathal (sp) or other 'truth serum'. Seems like that would be way more efficient. Oh wait... useful information isn't what this is all really about. Nevermind. :eyes:

[Redstone]

2. Well, yeah, that's why it's stupid to torture the Bad Guys.

Even leaving the moral aspects aside, torture is just dumb because it doesn't work if someone believes in their cause enough. They'll let you torture them to death before they give you any information, and THEN where are you? They're dead, and not exactly able to tell you what you need to know.

There are very bad people out there, and the ONLY way to get them to tell what they know is with drugs.

And if I know that, why don't the CIA and the DIA?

Redstone

[justabob]

3. right nt

[SofaKingLiberal]

4. Sodium Pentothal doesn't really work the way it does in the movies. n/t

[justabob]

5. Yeah, I know, but I'd bet it would work better than what they are doing nt

[shenmue]

6. Extraordinarily stupid sign...

off the highway near where I live:

It's for a law enforcement campaign to bust meth rings. That's not the stupid part.

That would be the fact that on the billboard, right above the hotline number you're supposed to call to report people, it shows you pictures of the three main ingredients in meth. It names them.

I only knew what one of them was before...

What are these people trying to do? Arrest people or teach them?!

:silly:

:wtf:

[Mythsaje]

7. More meth manufacturers, more busts, more agency profits...

Do the math.

<g>