8 Things Movies Always Get Wrong About Drugs

7. Truth Serum Works Like Magic

It's a scary thought that somebody can just slip something in your drink, and you'll be spilling all of your deepest, darkest secrets. Fortunately, it doesn't quite work like that.

Rather than rendering someone "incapable" of lying, truth serums work by lowering the inhibitions of the individual. Far from being some kind of magical potion, they work in an almost identical way to normal alcohol. Anyone who has ever had a conversation with a sloppy drunk will know that they're much more likely to share a lot more than they would sober, but this is usually in the form of a confused stream of blended facts and fantasies.

While a drunk/drugged person is more likely to spill a secret, there's also a fairly good chance they'll tell a lot of lies and exaggerations so, in order to get any useful information out of your victim at all, you need to know exactly what you're looking for. Even then you can't be certain that you haven't influenced their answers and you have to deal with a sloppy drunk.