Posted on 05/10/2009 12:55:04 PM PDT by kellynla
For well over a decade, they were friends as they launched a global campaign to legalise assisted suicide for terminally-ill patients.
But after Dr Nitschke conducted a tour of Britain last week to show people how they can end their lives effectively, Dr Irwin has hit out at his former colleagues actions.
Dr Irwin accused Dr Nitschke of being "totally irresponsible" for telling people how to obtain an "easy access" drug either for their own suicides or to help with the deaths of seriously-ill relatives.
The drug, Nembutal, is illegal for human use in Britain but obtainable through the internet.
His attack comes just five days after Dr Nitschke began a series of "suicide workshops" in Britain – demonstrations in which he shows people how they can end life using "exit bags" and "peaceful pills".
Dr Nitschke is the founder of the pro-euthanasia organisation Exit International and he carried out the world's first legal assisted suicides in the 1990s.
He was initially stopped from entering Britain last week when he arrived with his Euthanasia Drug Test Kit, but he was eventually allowed in after a nine-hour discussion with immigration officials at Heathrow.
Dr Irwin has also revealed that he had pulled out of a trip abroad last year with ten people contemplating an assisted suicide when he realised that at least two of them were "totally unsuitable" to make the trip.
They were going to Mexico to obtain bottles of Nembutal, which costs just £65 for a dose that would be lethal to a human being.
One was a bisexual man of about 30 who was HIV positive but did not have full-blown Aids. "He was depressed, but it would have been totally wrong to help him commit suicide," said Dr Irwin.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
ping
Ah, at least one Dr. Frankenstein realized what a monster he had created.
The buzz is all over the internet now for those who want to do the deed, but they are up to their own devices. Nembutal is pentobarbital, one of the barbiturates. Back when barbiturates were a common sleeping pill, suicides by consuming an entire bottle of them were notorious. Modern sleeping pills generally cannot do this.
Dr Ray Nitschke and Dr Irwin Corey.
For now 9mm is cheaper, may not be in a few years.
Strange. In my memory Nembutal was one of the milder depressants. Why is it outlawed in Great Britain? It’s sister barbiturates Seconal and Tuinal were many degrees stronger.
Probably one of the few good things about barbiturates (aside from its use in surgery-Sodium Pentothal,) was the long lasting effects they produced. I still think barbiturates were one of the most effective sleeping pills when taken in small doses but in truth, they are crazy dangerous and subject to extreme abuse.
btw: I believe they were first produced at the Bayer labs in Germany.
A fight to the death!
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