Gaius Baltar's interrogation

Question

Is there any given reason, from any licensed or reliable source, that a decommissioned Battlestar (like the Galactica), would have the psychotropic truth-drugs used in Season 3 on Gaius Baltar on board, after being designated a museum?

Answer 1

The Battlestar Fleet contains at least one medical ship, the Inchon Velle. It would appear that the ship has a registered psychiatrist (and a brain surgeon) on board who would presumably have access to a wide pharmacopia.

Helo: You know Kara, there's a, um, a psychiatrist aboard the Inchon Velle. We've made an appointment for Hera.

There's absolutely no reason to assume that the Galactica, in the intervening two seasons hasn't restocked their own medical supplies, nor that they can't simply ask for certain drugs to be transported over (from other ships) as needed.

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It's worth noting that there's an implication from Adama's conversation with Roslin that the drugs were already on board the Galactica, perhaps even that the ship had been involved in the testing in some way...

Adama: The military o­nce ran an experimental interrogation program involving drugs. Hallucinogens, specifically. The goal of the program was to create a state of anxiety so intense that the subject believed that their very survival was at stake. The interrogators would exploit that. Become less an adversary, and more a lifeline. At least that was the idea. It might get Baltar to talk, tell us what the Cylons know about Earth. But it's dangerous. Especially for someone in Baltar's condition.

Roslin: Are you telling me we have these drugs aboard Galactica?

(He looks at her silently, without answering.) -

Answer 2

The Galactica was not the only ship in the fleet of surviving ships. There were a number of others which might have had such a drug on board. Keep in mind that many drugs have more than one use; for example, Sodium Pentothal (the most common "truth serum") was originally a sedative used in anesthesia.

• The Astral Queen, a prisoner transport ship, might have had such a drug for prisoner interrogation.
• Cloud 9 was a massive resort, with an abundance of recreational drugs, some of which could be used medicinally.
• The Inchon Velle was a medical ship of some kind (when Starbuck has disturbing dreams of the Cylon Leoben, Helo suggests she see a psychiatrist on the Inchon Velle. A brain surgeon was brought from the Inchon Velle to help Samuel Anders. This ship would certainly have had psychotropic drugs.

Etc.

Answer 3

The Galactica did not spend the series flying around space on it's own. It was the head of an entire fleet made up almost entirely of civilian ships -- whatever was left over after the Cylon's initial attacks.

Those ships would have included all kinds of supplies -- food, medicine, clothes, etc., since they were largely active and operational vessels at the time of the attack. We see many times during the series where Galactica crew carry supplies to and from those vessels.

Although we never explicitly see Galactica stocking up on truth serum, that would be a perfectly simple and mundane explanation for where they got such a thing: another ship in the fleet had it and Adama confiscated it.