Having recently read Margaret Cunneen’s autobiography, The Boxing Butterly, it seems she wrote it too soon as she now embarks on a long overdue crusade to introduce thiopentone (sodium pentobarbitone) into the legal system (“Give killers truth serum to find bodies”, 24/8). Elderly patients with Alzheimer’s disease demonstrate a capacity to accurately recall events from 50 years ago showing excellent long-term memory, yet cannot remember recent events. Stored in the hippocampus, recent events drown out and perhaps significantly alter our long-term recollections. Thiopentone, commonly used anaesthetic intravenous agent, acts to induce a reversible state where the hippocampus is switched off, like in Alzheimers, allowing long-term memories to be expressed without inhibition. While lie detector information has been popularised, it is clearly inferior. Any prisoner believing he is innocent would surely welcome the benefits of a thiopentone verbal examination before trial. With a strict set of questions agreed with defence lawyers beforehand and a specialist anaesthetist on hand to maximise patient safety, this proposal by the insightful Cunneen might well become a gold standard of legal protection. Compulsory testing of the convicted to find missing bodies represents a new safety net for those innocent. Alan Sexton, Nth Parramatta, NSW 25Aug2023.