A criminal's perfect drug?

Picture the scenario. You meet a stranger on the street, have a brief, perhaps cordial exchange, and moments later you're handing over practically everything you have in your possession. If you've got your bank cards on you, you might even go the nearest ATM, withdraw your limit and give it to your recently met acquaintance.

Scopolamine: Taking people in Bogotá on a 'trip' they don't want to go on?

Nice, if you're on the receiving end of such generosity that is. If only, eh? 

Yet, in Bogotá, these kinds of things do happen. No, it's not a case of there being more giving types here compared to other places — it's more likely the opposite on that score.

It's all to do with what you could describe as a type of hypnotising drug, sourced from plants found in these parts. 

For those unaware of scopolamine/hyoscine, or Devil's Breath as it's also called, how it allegedly affects individuals under its influence reads like some sort of horror/science fiction movie.

Basically, if you're unlucky enough to be exposed to it, so it goes, you'll become completely subservient to whoever happens to be around you. You'll pretty much do whatever they ask you to do. 

You can still function, superficially and physically in any case, more or less as normal. The problem is that you lose your willpower. Whatever is asked of you, you'll do, no questions asked.

Now, some pharmacological experts are unwilling to give scopolamine, or whatever similar version of it is used, such lofty 'credit' as a drug that takes away your self-control with just the slightest sniff of it. 

They dispute the commonly held belief that inhaling a small dose in powder form – one of the ways Devil's Breath dispensers drug their victims is by blowing it in their faces – would instantly send somebody into a puppet-like stupor.

Nonetheless, you'll find plenty of people who were robbed or taken advantage of in Bogotá who swear that they were maliciously administered something that dramatically altered their behaviour, something other than the usual alcohol and whatever else they might be having.

The Brugmansia plant, source of scopolamine. (Photo from web.) 

So for those who have had nights where they've found themselves acting completely out of character in the company of strangers – and normally robbed, to boot – they're convinced that if it's not exactly scopolamine that's to blame, some sort of nasty concoction is.

Despite all the anecdotes of such freaky episodes, in a lot of cases there's a lack of hard evidence available to say whether it was actually Devil's Breath at play or not – that is to say, no toxicology tests were taken.

For this reason, it remains in limbo: an urban myth or a dangerous criminal reality? 

Whatever the case, for some victims of crime in Bogotá, something sinister has been, and continues to be, lurking in the air. More reasons to always have the guard up around here.
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