Scopolamine is used against motion sickness, the dosage for that is at least 10-20 times smaller than a tripping dose.
I believe the form of "Scopolamine" that you buy over the counter is not the form that will do anything psychotropic to you, though some have claimed to have accidentally had effects from using more than one patch in the space of a few days, and maybe having a drink or two.
Scopolamine Butylbromide (i.e.: Hyoscine Butylbromide) is what's in the seasickness patches:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/6852391
Scopolamine Hydrobromide (i.e.: Hyoscine Hydrobromide) is what comes from factories in China, and labs in northern South America and northern Central America:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Scopolamine_hydrobromide
It's worth noting that Hyoscine Butylbromide, which is the over-the-counter one, doesn't work so much, because it has a quaternary nitrogen cation that prevents it from crossing the blood brain barrier, making it much less active. I might also add that "Burundanga", is reportedly a mix of Hyoscine Hydrobromide with small amounts of tetrodotoxin and other things to stupefy and cause near-paralysis. This is not to be confused with Toloache, To?, and the many other names for the sources of Hyoscine Hydrobromide.
I believe Scopolamine is Hyoscine, biosynthesised from Hyoscyamine (Daturine) as found in Brugmansia varieties, as Atropine is L-Hyoscyamine as found in Datura varieties.
One of many kinds of antimuscarinic anticholinergic tropane alkaloids that inhibit acetylcholine activity in connections to the Hippocampi and Amygdalas, where your short-term memory and emotional tuning of memory and fight or flight response happens; I think it acts upon the parasympathetic nervous system, which explains the other side effects. I read that dopamine is also activated a bit too in the Striatum, Ventral Tegmental Area, and Nucleus Accumbens Septi by some anticholinergics. There's something about the Pons and aminergic activation that has an effect on the ability to differentiate between dreams and reality. It's interesting that we dream several times a night, but never remember it, and i think this has something to do with acetylcholine being active in NREM sleep but not during REM sleep, and vice versa for dopamine. I don't know if that means it puts people into a zombi state or into a hypnotic trance, but I read someone on this forum, say that they used it for narcohypnosis, it's not easy to find academic research to confirm anything about that.
https://www.bluelight.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-512875.html
Oh I think you're talking about the zombies episode, yeah that was bullshit I think. There is another episode about a new phenomenon where people are spiking drinks or blowing powder in the face (scopolamine) and once the victim becomes delirious and has no idea what's happening, the attacker assumes the role of guide and convinces them to do various things like empty their bank accounts, open their house to them to be robbed, sexual assault, etc. Different than the zombie thing, the victim just doesn't realize what's real and what isn't and they largely remember it later. They remain able to do things like operate an ATM and so forth. It seems to be a big thing in South Africa I believe, these days.
I tend to agree. If you think about it, blowing powder into someone's face seems unlikely to do much. Assuming it's blown with enough velocity to reach the face, and there's no breeze to scatter it, the nostrils point down, and it's difficult to see how sufflation could mechanically happen - a sneeze seems more likely. Add to that, the eyes have more potentially exposed blood vessels, but the normal reaction to anything blowing into the eyes, is to close them. If any goes into the mouth, which may not be open, it still has to get past natural coughing, choking, gagging, and vomiting reactions; and if on the skin, the skin would have to be moist, perhaps from sweat or precipitation for the powder to have enough motility to become solvent and be absorbed, otherwise it woukd probably mostly fall off the skin.
Even if all those obstacles were overcome, it would have to be in a sufficient dose and of the active form to have a chance of an effect. That effect would take many minutes to arise if the material has to be absorbed through the surface of organs like skin or stomach; only gases, smoke or vapours could activate in seconds because the lungs are full of many blood vessels.
So, the blowing powder aspect of it is probably overstated, but ingestion via food or drink seems feasible. As for the effects, i believe the effects would be the same as many deliriants as described in many sources, but probably not as simple as just becoming a compliant zombi. Whether that makes it feasible for someone to be led to an ATM and compelled to hand over their stuff is unclear.
It's interesting that people talk about "free will" being suppressed, but what is "free will"? Where is it in the brain? What neurotransmitters interact with it, and how? I think the term used in neuroscience is "sense of agency", and it's maybe in the neocortex, and there's more than one thing happening there, in more than one area, with more than one neurotransmitter involved.
