Can taking caffeine before being tranquilized shorten the effects of the tranquilizer?

Question

Can taking caffeine before being tranquilized shorten the effects of the tranquilizer?

Answer 1

I'll assume you're talking about benzodiazepine tranquilizers, since 99.99% of the time that's what we use these days.

Caffeine can interfere with a tranquilizer. It usually does not shorten the duration of the tranquilizer, which is dependent on how long the drug remains in the body at useful potency. It can prevent the tranquilizer from taking full effect, it can occasionally have some strange side effects, but caffeine clears out of the system faster than most* tranquilizing drugs, at which point the full strength is felt.

*some very short acting ones like Halcion or Versed may clear before the caffeine.