A CAUTIONARY NOTE TO OUR MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS
FROM ERGO (Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization)
“The Peaceful Pill Handbook”
By Dr. Philip Nitschke & Dr. Fiona Stewart
To avoid any possible misunderstanding about this new book, our supporters should note that there is no such single unit as a ‘peaceful pill’ described in the book, as might be thought. The title is misleading. It’s a generalization — the authors mean by it any way you choose to die well.
For instance, of the ‘peaceful pill’ they say on page 34: “Much of the remainder of this book focuses on the various forms a Peaceful Pill might take.” They describe all sorts of poisons, gases, cyanide, helium, plastic bags and so on.So do “Final Exit” and other similar books.
As to making your own P.P. at home they write on page 166: “Setting out to manufacture one’s own Peaceful Pill — especially one related to the barbiturate class of drugs — exposes those involved in significant legal risk.” They point out the prison and financial penalties for doing this in Australia. They then describe how it might be done. It is expensive and complicated. The results of this home-made substance would then need to be assayed (tested). Nobody has yet used this way for a gentle death.
Much the same legal risk might apply in America to making your own pentobarbital. Commonsense tells you that making a USA Controlled Substance Schedule 2 at home could be a felony. At this very moment, (14 Feb.07) a court in Sydney is trying to decide whether the Nitschke/Stewart book is promoting crime in the chapter on ‘the Peanut Project’ for making pentobarbital.
The Dutch doctors who have been looking for the P.Pill for years — they call it the LastWillPill — have said that it does not exist. They’ve given up looking. They say pentobarbital (Nembutal) or sodium thiopental are the best-known lethal substances, preferably injected. Nembutal is also effective orally. As used in the Oregon law, in Switzerland, in Belgium, by prescription only. Thus the ‘gold standard’ for a gentle death remains a fast-acting barbiturate.
This is the same drug as described in Nitschke/Stewart book. You are shown over 14 pages how you might make it yourself, the chemical synthesis, the apparatus, the steps, etc. but the information is not at the level of a “recipe” or even “instructions”.
A reviewer of this book, Neil Francis, writing in the newsletter of Dying With Dignity Victoria, wrote: “…..The Peaceful Pill Handbook may be a title that would mislead some readers. A handbook usually means a practical ‘how-to-do-it-yourself’ manual, which this book largely is not. While it does discuss a variety of suicide methods, it does so in rather technical detail. I, a biochemist for ten years, would myself have a great deal of trouble successfully implementing many of them.â€
The book does, however, contain information at a truly helpful level about buying veterinary pentobarbital in Mexico. I advise our supporters thinking of going to Mexico to take a holiday there, preferably not on a border town and not in a group, and proceed discreetly and individually.
To purchase this book, go to www.exitinternational.net
——-
Derek Humphry, president, ERGO
ergo@finalexit.org – Oregon USA – 14 Feb 07
