Hot Christmas gift: Suicide pills

Elderly people are now buying their loved ones suicide kits as Christmas gifts, according to a prominent euthanasia physician nicknamed "Dr. Death."

Dr. Philip Nitschke, founder of Exit International and author of "The Peaceful Pill Handbook," has explained the use of legal drugs, inert gases, plastic bags and other methods for committing suicide to audiences all over the world, including in U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Calif., and Anaheim, Calif.

He told Australia's Herald-Sun a so-called "peaceful pill" is being developed from Nembutal, the favored drug for ending life. Nembutal is the same drug that killed famous actress Marilyn Monroe. It's mostly used by veterinarians as an anesthetic and euthanasia drug for animals.

The drug is widely available in Mexico for around $30 a bottle, and Nitschke told ABC News in September he has accompanied terminally ill patients to buy the drug.

"You pour it into a glass. You drink it. You follow that with your whiskey, and I've never seen anyone finish their whiskey," he said. "They put the glass down, and they're gone – gone to sleep, and death follows shortly thereafter. To the outside observer, nothing looks more peaceful."

But I am having a hard time seeing the wrong in someone making an individual choice about it. I have thought about it to the extent that, personally, I would hate to be elderly and dependent on others. I think the chance of neglect or mistreatment is high and I don't want to be trapped in that type of existence. I would hate to be mentally alert trapped in a non-functioning body or physically healthy but mentally gone.

There's better solutions than suicide. For example - the abuse? You're right... Lots of nursing homes hire the thuggiest of men - and put them in positions of power over the most vulnerable. Also, these thugs can now get the "respect" they were denied by their criminal actions. And they'll get it from you, Mr. Conservatives who doesn't kow tow to them.

That's a worst case - and it does happen. But you have options. Pick a home based on "feel" - have relatives who will come by and visit frequently ( that's insurance ) or change the system for you and your friends before you get there.

Bring back the boarding house - where a widow or small business owner takes in 5 or 6 people. The incentives change when you're the customer - not the recipient of 'care' when the less they spend the more they make - and you can't leave... Or get together with some other freeper seniors - pick out a five bedroom home and hire people to assist the five. Again - different incentive when the help is seeing you and friends as "the boss"... And with your last concern - locked in body that won't function? Talk it out with "freeper room-mates"... We don't have to be victims of liberal dehumanizing systems.. we can create nice situations to go out on...

ah, the assumption is that you own your own life.

But my Native American patients put it this way: We were put here for a reason, and we have a path to follow. Suicide is refusing to follow God’s path.

There is pain and there is suffering: In the US, if you have pain or if you are sick, we can treat these with pills, but the main cause of suffering is that American culture, or rather the culture of those who promote euthanasia, see sickness and suffering as useless, and despise those who are helpless: they are seen as better off dead.

So often the sufferer will ask to die, and if you would give him a suicide pill, your actions would confirm that you want him to do it, because you want to get rid of him.

Other cultures see bearing suffering as showing one’s courage and wisdom; Christians see it as a way to identify with the Cross of Christ, and many religions see it as a way to make up for their sins (not just western religions: e.g. Buddhists).

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