Bitter poisons and the use of additives to suppress detection

[nbk2000]

I was wandering the internet when I found mention in a NY TIMES article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/technology/26BITT.html?ex=1078722000&en=6b370f547a4ffdb7&ei=5070) of a newly patented bitter-taste suppressant.

I've looked at the 3 patents by Linguagen (6,008,000/5,817,759/5,688,662), the manufacturer, and can tell you that AMP (the suppressant) is NOT something you can make in the kitchen, as it's a bio-tech engineered product, with the patents listing long ACGT sequences. :(

How is this relevant to CW, you ask? Well, not CW exactly, but rather poisoning.

See, a lot of otherwise fine poison are unuseable because they have nasty bitter tastes that make it difficult to feed enough to a target before he stops eating/drinking the tainted food because of the nasty taste.

Things like strychnine, nicotine, etc, all have bitter tastes, as well as most other alkaloids.

The addition of a bitterness suppressing additive, specifically tailored for maximal effectiveness with the choosen poison, would make useage much easier.

As they have taste thresholds well below their toxic levels, you'd mix up the poison, dilute to a fraction of the toxic dose, then assay it with your tongue, using a cotton swab to apply to the bitter tasting parts of the tongue.

Don't swallow, obviously. :p Rinse with distilled water and spit.

Repeat as needed till the poison is as bland as possible. You now have a nice little "seasoning" to add. ;) :D

[eXcidium]

There is an alcaloid wich isn't used alot, but in fact is sweet

(And rarely looked for)

Digitoxin, from the Digitalis plant (foxglove? not sure)

[vulture]

Most toxic plant alkaloides are basic in solution IIRC. It might be interesting to convert them to their salts or to attach another organic molecule.

[nbk2000]

I know there's a methyl salt of strychnine that's supposed to be tasteless, or nearly so, made by reacting the freebase with methyl iodide. Maybe that could be applied to others?

I'm sure there's plenty of alkaloid poisons out there that wouldn't be looked for by the lab piggies, on the (previously correct) assumption that the poison would be too bitter to be eaten in lethal doses. These would be the ones you'd want to use.

Excidium, digitalis is very common, being used as a heart medication, and one of the 200 most common poisons looked for in a toxicology screening.

[eXcidium]

NBK, you're right

Again another suggestion:

1-phenylthiourea (phenylthiocarbamide)
(absorbed through skin or swallowed)
Almost tasteless, completely odourless
LD50 3 mg kg-1

[Ropik]

Atropine and aconitine are both terrible bitter, I am right?
I think that you can use "poor man's taste masking" in some chinese restaurant or similar, if some food is peppered enough to cover the taste.
OR you can mix it with something like extra strong tabasco sauce. Seasonig, anybody???
I remember that I saw some lolly pops or some similar candies few months ago, which are supposed to be bitter-tasting. I do not know if enough.

[Ropik]

Edit button disappear, so I must use new reply:
I read some detective story, where somebody was poisoned with aconitine in Martini bitter. That taste was used to disguise poison.

[vialone]

The way to keep a subject from tasting the item in question would be as follows in a dream I had:

A sewer rat was given 3 Contact-C capsules filled with strychnine and painted with red nail polish to give them a "street drug" look the sewer rat was informed that it was recieving "red comet mescaline" the amount of strychnine was not lethal but did cause severe symptoms (wasn't there to see but did hear that the sewer rat had a spasm the next morning that actually flipped the breakfast table over in front of it's mother!).

The use of a capsule negated the need for a taste masking substance.

[zeocrash]

The way to keep a subject from tasting the item in question would be as follows in a dream I had:

A sewer rat was given 3 Contact-C capsules filled with strychnine and painted with red nail polish.
...informed that it was recieving "red comet mescaline" the amount of strychnine was not lethal but did cause severe symptoms.

The use of a capsule negated the need for a taste masking substance.

Red comet mescaline??
Mescaline is mescaline. It's not designed to be a mixture of psychoactive chemicals like pills. It's supposed to be mescaline sulphate/hydrochloride. Any other ingredients are usually inert cutters. Substances such as pills are given different names relating to the mix of substances in them (mdma, ketamine, MDA, Amphetamine), usually named after the stamp on the pill.
As for your target audience, I don't really think mescaline is the drug that you want, try coke or heroin.
As for the street drug look, what exactly is that, what does a street drug look like.

Just out of interest how much strycnine is in these capsules

wiki: strychnine
A lethal dose was cited as 1/2 a grain (32 mg), but people have been known to die from as little as 5 mg of strychnine



This means your story is true if one or more of the following conditions are met.
1) you use really tiny capsules
2) you use really highly cut strychnine and just happend to get lucky with not killing the guy
3) you have a mate with a huge body mass
4) you're dreaming out of your ass

[nbk2000]

While researching the use of artifical sweetners as masking agents, the following was found:

In May 1992, the official U.S. Air Force Magazine, Flying Safety explained:

...People have suffered aspartame-related disorders with doses as small as that carried in a single stick of chewing gum.

This could mean a pilot who drinks diet sodas is more susceptible to flicker vertigo or to flicker-induced epileptic activity.

It also means that all pilots are potential victims of sudden memory loss, dizziness during instrument flight and gradual loss of vision."

Aspartame is sold by Monsanto Chemical Co. as NutraSweet and EQUAL, and now under other names by other producers.

Apparently, one of the breakdown products of Nutrasweet, Phenylalanine, lowers the seizure threshold in the brain.

Combining pulsed lighting with a target using Nutrasweet flavored foods could result in a seizure.

[ciguy007]

One of the very bitter alkaloids is quinine. The brits added it to soda and gin to get their daily quinine (gin and tonic) in India and the orient; but how would it be administered to children or people who must not have alcohol but must have an acceptable (palatable) liquid containing a very bitter agent?

A pharmaceutically (and the ONLY commercial) form of quinine in a liquid dosage form was marketed as "coco-quinine" which was, as you might imagine, quinine in a chocolate syrup base. With bitter agents which have substantially lower doses than quinine, chocolate might well be an effective masking agent.

[Bugger]

What about artificial (or natural) bittering agents used in foods or liquids to discourage illicit consumption? A substance called "Bitterex" is used in "methylated" or "denatured" spirits (which in spite of their name no longer contain methanol) sold for domestic and industrial purposes in Australia and probably New Zealand, to render it unpalatable as an alcoholic drink. Although "Bitterex" gives numerous Google results, only one tells what it is chemically - apparently, an extract from "bitter melon seed", which is probably a free-base alkaloid. In a thread on sciencemadness.org, someone has succeeded in removing it, by conversion probably to the hydrosulfate (which being a salt would have a salting-out effect on the 5-10% water content with a small amount of concentrated sulfuric acid added carefully, and then distillation.

[nbk2000]

The correct name of it is Bitrex, AKA Denatonium Benzoate, a synthetic chemical.

Though the topic is about disguising the taste of bitter poisons, not bittering agents.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

IIRC Bitrex was originally added to barbiturates by Eli Lilly & Co. back in the 1960's (or earlier) as pure barbiturate (Seconal, Nembutal, Tuinal, etc) was not bitter and were so very pretty....

[Jacks Complete]

Since a quality dark (high coca) chocolate is quite bitter anyway, hiding a bitter toxin in a chocolate might be a good plan. The high-class consumer would expect it to be bitter, and when it was, that would not stick in his mind. If you used a cheap chocolate (cooking chocolate?) and some black or whatever food colouring to darken it, as well as your toxin, you could make up something pretty nasty, I should think.

Only issue might be the taste testing! Halloween candy, anyone?

[anonymous411]

Flavorit: Bringing the Flavoring Fun Home!
http://www.flavorx.com/flavorit/

Introducing…FLAVORiT by FLAVORx, an at-home flavoring system that lets you safely change the taste of any OTC liquid in the comfort of your home. Cough syrups, vitamins, laxatives, infant formulas…anything that you & your kids find unbearable… don’t have to taste bad anymore.

FLAVORx
http://www.flavorx.com/human/default.asp

FLAVORx is the #1 behind-the-counter system available at pharmacies nationwide. We use medically designed and scientifically tested flavorings to combat the bad taste of liquid medicines. With over 42 FDA-approved flavorings for both over-the-counter and prescription medications, FLAVORx is sure to have a solution that appeals to your taste buds. To date, over 20 million medications have been flavored without any changes in efficacy or incidence of complication, adverse reaction or allergy. Each of our participating pharmacies follows a formulary or "recipe book" that details how to mask the existing taste and smell to re-flavor the medication with FLAVORx. It is our goal to remove the hurdles in taking unpleasant medicine to promote treatment success and better health for you, your family, your patients and your customers. Just ask your pharmacist to "FLAVORx your medicine!"

[cyclosarin]

If you were going to use something like flavorit to mask a taste you'd need to choose your medium such that the consumer would not be surprised by a strong combination of flavours (like in the case of medicine). I think alcohol might be a good choice; if your toxin is in a cocktail with a reasonably high alcohol content they should pass it off as a mixer if you choose one with a similar flavour.

Of course if the commercial mask is not all it's hyped up to be then it would be pointless going to the extra trouble of using it and trying to explain the taste.

[anonymous411]

If you were going to use something like flavorit to mask a taste you'd need to choose your medium such that the consumer would not be surprised by a strong combination of flavours (like in the case of medicine). I think alcohol might be a good choice; if your toxin is in a cocktail with a reasonably high alcohol content they should pass it off as a mixer if you choose one with a similar flavour.

Of course if the commercial mask is not all it's hyped up to be then it would be pointless going to the extra trouble of using it and trying to explain the taste.


I'd be interested in seeing the FlavorX formulary first: obviously, some poisons are going to be masked better than others. Might be worth a little social engineering to find out.

I once did a medical experiment where I was administered a dose of some kind of narcotic/opiate in a glass of orange soda. It had a bitter aftertaste, but wasn't too unbearable; rather enjoyable, actually. Have you tried those italian sodas like San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata? Damn, you'd think they already had poison in them. haha

Speaking of orange soda, I'll bet you could seriously fuck somebody up with a Big Gulp full of the orange soda used in oral glucose tolerance tests.

http://lab-suppliesonline.com/fisherbrand-glucose-tolerance-beverages-grams-p-3227.html

[W4RGASM]

NBK, you're right

Again another suggestion:

1-phenylthiourea (phenylthiocarbamide)
(absorbed through skin or swallowed)
Almost tasteless, completely odourless
LD50 3 mg kg-1


Except that PTC is used as a test for the 'sueprtaster' gene and tastes extremely bitter in a certain proportion of the population.



Also, NBK, I'd be less then inclined to taste test even a sub-lethal dose of a toxin, considering the speed with which compounds are abrorbed through sublingual membranes of the mouth.


Have you tried those italian sodas like San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata? Damn, you'd think they already had poison in them. haha

True that, I'm quite a fan of them, in particular... Uh, fuck, can't remember the name. brown one.

[nbk2000]

You could always use a swab to put a minute amount on the various taste-sensors of the tongue, and scrapping the tongue off prior to rinse/spit, thus minimizing the amount of toxin-exposure, and greatly reducing contact of the toxin with the absorbing tissues of the mouth, of which the tongue is not.

http://www.diwinetaste.com/html/dwt200502/images/Tongue.gif

But, the above may not be correct:


The Tongue Map Myth

When a clinician suspects taste problems in a client, the clinician may first think about conducting a taste test using the "tongue map." This procedure involves swabbing a person’s tongue with various taste qualities (sweet, sour, etc.) and asking the person to name the taste. We are supposed to perceive sweet taste at the tip of our tongue, for example, and bitter at the back, and other tastes should have their place as well.

If you have performed this test, you may be surprised to learn that the tongue map is wrong. It is a mistranslation of an early-1900s German thesis that was disproved in 1974. Unfortunately, it continues to be published in textbooks today.

For the record, we perceive all taste qualities all over our tongue, although there may be increased sensitivity to certain qualities in certain areas. In addition, it is important to remember that our taste system provides information on the intensity and pleasantness (or unpleasantness) of taste as well. What we like and dislike in food can change over time, a fact to which parents of preschoolers and teenagers can attest.

[Vitalis]

This flavorit substance may have potential, but just how well does it mask extremely bitter poisons? Obviously I'm not going to test this on myself, and I don't have anyone in mind that I would like to poison at the moment.

I could buy some of this flavorit stuff and see how well it masks the taste of wormwood, which is an extremely bitter herb that isn't poisonous.

I may well do this in the near future, the website claims flavorit is available at Wal-Mart so I could test this substance to see how well it works.

I am wondering what flavour to choose to be most effective.

[W4RGASM]

hat isn't poisonous.

I beg to differ.

Aside from the old aadage 'everything is a poison, what changes is the dose', your herb generally referred to as 'wormwood' (artemisia absinthium) has quite a few nasty little saponins and the like in it.