Posted on 09/09/2006 9:30:23 PM PDT by Marius3188
Lethal barbiturate produced by members of Australian right-to-die association
TORONTO -- An Australian physician attending a global conference in Toronto of right-to-die organizations intends to display this weekend what he says is the first do-it-yourself suicide pill -- made by a group of Australians with degenerative and terminal illnesses.
Group members, ranging in age from 55 to 94, have taught themselves the chemistry to make a lethal barbiturate whose main component is amylobarbitone, said Dr. Philip Nitschke, executive director of Australia's national dying with dignity organization, Exit International.
After a year of trials, they have synthesized the barbiturate into crystalline form. It is being tested for contaminants in an Australian laboratory. Once they get the laboratory's assay results later this month, the barbiturate -- named the Peanut Project ("peanut" is an American street name for barbiturates) -- should be ready for use, Dr. Nitschke said.
The 20 members of the group, all members of Exit, each contributed about $1,700 for laboratory glass and other material and set up their lab in a New South Wales farm, pretending to be a gathering of birdwatchers. As they experimented, they discovered how to simplify their manufacturing procedures.
Dr. Nitschke said their plan, after they are dead, is to bequeath their equipment and how-to knowledge to the next group of people who want to end their lives. About 100 are on a waiting list. He estimated that people in the successor group will need to invest only about $425 to manufacture sufficient amounts to kill themselves.
The Exit group's barbiturate belongs to the class of medications known as pentobarbital or Nembutal. Australian law prohibits physicians from prescribing Nembutal and its sister barbiturate, Amytal. But Australian authorities have not moved against Exit's laboratory.
However, the country's Suicide Material Offences Act prohibits anyone from giving how-to advice on suicide via fax, telephone or e-mail, which led to Exit splitting itself into two organizations and moving its website out of Australia to New Zealand.
Dr. Nitschke's association with euthanasia goes back more than a decade. Almost exactly 10 years ago he assisted the first of four people to die legally in Australia's Northern Territory after it passed short-lived legislation legalizing doctor-assisted euthanasia.
Bob Dent, 66, a carpenter who had suffered for five years from progressing prostate cancer, invited Dr. Nitschke to his home in Darwin one Sunday at noon and hospitably offered him lunch.
Dr. Nitschke recalled that he couldn't eat. His throat was dry. His shirt was soaked with perspiration. Every time he opened his mouth to say something, he realized his words contained some inappropriate connotation of the future that would be spoken to a man who was about to be dead.
With lunch over and conversation lagging, Mr. Dent suggested he, his Canadian wife, Judy, and Dr. Nitschke watch a football game. The game ended at 2 p.m. Mr. Dent said, "It's time."
Dr. Nitschke hooked up his homemade euthanasia machine: a laptop connected to a Nembutal-filled syringe connected to a needle he inserted in Mr. Dent's arm.
On the laptop screen were three questions Mr. Dent had to answer sequentially to trigger the syringe. Each said pretty much the same thing: "Are you aware that if you press this key you will die?" -- except the last asked Mr. Dent if he was aware that, by pushing a key, he would die in 15 seconds.
"He went press, press, press, pushed the laptop away and put his arms around Judy and died," Dr. Nitschke said in an interview.
Australia's federal Parliament soon disallowed the territorial legislation.
Dr. Nitschke's euthanasia machine wound up in the British Museum. He met the museum's director once and told him he appreciated the museum's broadmindedness in taking the device. The director replied that broadmindedness had nothing to do with it -- the device was merely considered some quaint colonial artifact.
He should be the first to demonstrate how to use these devices and pills.
Why?
Moral absolutes ping
whoops, #4 was supposed to be to you.
I see nothing wrong with this. I know, I know.....I'm the angel of death.
Shades of "On The Beach" and the big red pill.
Good! Send several cases of them to the muslimes. They love to commit suicide. This way they can do it quick and easy.
This is why I stopped dating a certain Chemistry PhD student back in the day.
Moore's Law (Too much of a good thing is just right) doesn't always produce good results.
Soros bankrolls DEATH IN AMERICA.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/pdia
Probably for the same reason why prisoners about to be executed via lethal injection first have their arms swabbed with alcohol. We don't want them to catch an infection or get sick now do we?
That's because they aren't fighting for a "right to die". Everyone has a right to die. And everyone will die whether they want to or not. What these animals want is a 'right to kill'.
Leni
So why not just jump in a river or something? Why manufacure drugs in a home lab?
Let's hear the argument for this one. Oh yes, too much of an invalid to throw themselves off a bridge, but they can be pretend home phamacists instead. Knives, razorblades, or overdoses of the many drugs they are probably on just won't work...
Also, as pointed out, what's the point of testing for "impurities"? Afraid of a "bad death"?
Whay's the big deal? Cyanide's been around or centuries. Is it necessary to spend money to develop a suicide pill when a really good one already exists? Maybe these guys should try out some cyanide before wasting money.
Because then it may not work so well.
I suggest the advocate serve as volunteer sugjects, to test the purity of the agent.
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