alt.suicide.holiday Methods FAQ
Hello, folks. This is the semi-famous alt.suicide.holiday Methods
File. It contains information on many different ways to take your own
life. Some of them are serious, some of them are not. Hopefully, you
can see which is which by yourself, but I'll try to mark them anyway.
This file will be posted on the third and seventeenth of every month.
It may take a while before it gets out to your site.
The early versions of this file were created and maintained by Michael
Marsden, who unfortunately no longer has access to the Net. After he
left, the File sort of hung in a Limbo for a long time, in custody of
a variety of people I can't remember (if you at some time or other
were a maintainer of the File, I'd like to hear from you). I think,
but am far from sure, that Angela Watson (a.k.a. Psycho Kitten) was
the last "official" maintainer, but I got the impression that she no
longer is.
Anyway, I have dictatorially taken over the custodianship of the File.
If you want to complain, my email address is calle@lysator.liu.se.
Comments on the content of the file are welcome, generally speaking.
If your comments are of the kind "You shouldn't help people kill
themselves, you should help them towards a better life instead",
you're wasting your time. I've grown very tired of that debate, and
will most probably no longer reply to mail with that general content.
The most basic difference in opinion between me and those who have
mailed me telling me I'm a monster, seems to be that they think that
death is an inherently Bad Thing, while I don't.
What follows is a not-so-slightly edited version of the last File
posted by Mike Marsden. The text's "I" is Mike, my comments will be
marked.
_________________________________________________________________
Part 1 - Preamble
NOTES
This list is compiled from a large number of sources, the main one
being this newsgroup (ASH). I have not named anyone in any of the
entries to ensure their privacy.
Calle: I, on the other hand, will name sources if (and only if) the
sources give me permission.
There may be inaccuracies in many of the entries... double check if
you can. Go to the library and read up on your favorite method - check
dosages in the manufacturer's data sheets. If you do notice any
inaccuracies, please write to the net ASAP.
LEGAL
This file is provided for the purposes of amusement, and the actual
use of any of these methods is not recommended without first
considering other possibilities, such as dying of old age. Please do
not pass it onto people whom you know to be actively suicidal.. you
may find yourself in jail for considerable periods. I have a small
amount of info on British law regarding assisting suicides; feel free
to ask me for a copy. Basically, distribution to a number of unknown
people is fine, but giving it to someone whom you know is actively
considering suicide can get you into jail for up to 14 years.
I should also point out that this file is distributed world-wide, and
there will be significant differences in the legal aspects in other
countries.
Calle: For example, in Sweden the distribution of this file is
completely legal, according to a lawyer I know. As long as you don't
physically help someone to commit suicide, you're safe. According to
the lawyer mentioned above, Dr. Kevorkian's suicide machine would
probably be legal in Sweden.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES
* [1]"Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and
Assisted Suicide for the Dying" Derek Humphry (publisher: Hemlock)
* [2]alt.suicide.holiday newsgroup on "usenet"
* [3]alt.med newsgroup on "usenet"
* [4]"Poisonous Plants and Fungi: an Illustrated Guide" (Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods) M R Cooper, A W Johnson
* [5]"Encyclopedia of Human Biology"
* "Let Me Die Before I Wake" Derek Humphry
* "Suicide, Mode d'Emploi" Claude Guillon, Yves Le Bonniec
* "Zorg jij dak ik niet meer wakker word?" Klazien Sybrandy, Rob
Bakker
* "How To Die With Dignity" George B Mair, EXIT (Scottish)
* "A Guide To Self-Deliverance" EXIT (Britain)
* "Autodeliverance" Michel L Landa
* "Justifiable Euthanasia" Pieter V Admiraal
* "First You Cry" Betty Rollin
* "Last Wish" Betty Rollin
* "Death of a Man" Lael Wertenberger
* "Jean's Way" Derek Humphry
* "The Savage God: A Study of Suicide" A Alvarez
* "Double Exit" Ann Wickett
* "Voluntary Euthanasia: A Comprehensive Bibliography" G Johnson
(Hemlock)
* "The Woman Said Yes" Jessamyn West
* "The Bell Jar" Sylvia Plath
* "Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products" Williams & Wilkins
Company
* "Suicide: The Gamble with Death" Gene & David Lester
* "Crisis Intervention in the Community" Richard K McGee
* "Wanting to Die" Anne Sexton
* "Bitter Fame" (bio about) Sylvia Plath (author is) Anne Stevenson
* "Letters Home" (bio about) Sylvia Plath (author is) Aurelia S
Plath
* "Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones & his People"
Dutton
* "Essays in Self-Destruction" (ed) Edwin S Shneidman
* "Suicide: A Study in Sociology" Emile Durkheim
* "Suicide and Attempted Suicide" Erwin Stengel
* "Endangered Hope: Experiences in Psychiatric Aftercare Facilities"
David K Reynolds, Norman L Farberow
* "Death Wishes? The Understanding & Managment of Deliberate Self
Harm" H G Morgan
* "The Final Months: a Study of the Lives of 134 Persons who
Committed Suicide" Eli Robins
* "Suicide: Inside and Out" David K Reynolds, Normal L Farberow
* "Attempted Suicide: A Practical Guide to its Nature and
Management" Keith Hawton, Jose Catalan
* "The Negative Scream: A Story of Young People Who Took an
Overdose" Sally O'Brien
* "Caring for the Suicidal" John Eldrid
* "The Samaritans: to help those tempted to suicide or despair" Chad
Varah
* "Mishima: A Biography" John Nathan
* "Self-Mutilation: Theory, Research, and Treatment" Barent W Walsh,
Paul M Rosen
* "Defeating Depression: a Guide for Depressed People and Their
Familes" C A H Watts
* "Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison" Dorothy Rowe
* "The Oxford Book of Death" D J Enright
This booklist is an extended list from [1]. I strongly recommend
[1], try getting it mail order from the address below.
Calle: Not used in the creation of this file, but recommended on
the newsgroup was:
* "The Enigma Of Suicide" by George Howe Colt
GROUPS
The National Hemlock Society [American, pro-euthanasia, many books,
PO Box 11830 D Humphry is founder]
Eugene, OR 97440-3900
USA
(503) 342-5748
Samaritans [British, suicide hotlines and
prevention, Chad Varah is founder.
non-interventionist approach]
Befrienders International [International, suicide prevention,
umbrella organisation]
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society [British, pro-euthanasia]
(Formerly British EXIT)
Association pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignite
[French, pro-euthanasia]
Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Humanes Sterben
[German, pro-euthanasia]
Club of Life [American, anti-euthanasia]
INDEX
TO BE CONSTRUCTED
_________________________________________________________________
Part 2 - Methods: Poisons
POISON [1] makes most of these points:
* Most drugs cause vomiting. To help stop this, take one or two
anti- histamine tablets (travel sickness, allergy, hayfever
tablets etc) about an hour before, on a fairly empty stomach.
* If the drugs are in tablet form, take the first 20% as they are,
and the rest crushed and dissolved / mixed in with strong alcohol
/ food. This helps the drugs to hit at the same time.
* Alcohol helps dissolve the drugs. Don't drink any beforehand, but
wash the tablets down with vodka or similar, and then drink
afterwards while you're still conscious.
* Use a large airtight plastic bag over your head, + something
around your neck to hold it on. This transforms a 90% certainty
method into a 99%...
* Friday night is a good time if you life alone - nobody will miss
you until Monday if you work. Bolt all the doors you can. Say
you'll be out over the weekend visiting someone, so people don't
expect a reply to telephone.
* Some painkillers etc have less effect if you use them normally
(tolerance).
* In general, you need to stay away from medical help until you
actually die, but there are exceptions to this (that have been
pointed out in the text).
_________________________________________________________________
Common drugs:
Cyanide (HCN, KCN)
* Dosage: 50 mg Hydrogen Cyanide gas, 200-300 mg Cyanide salts
* Time: seconds for HC, minutes Cs (empty stomach) hours (full s)
* Available: very difficult to get hold of
* Certainty: very certain
* Notes: It helps to have an empty stomach (since the salts react
with the stomach acids to form H.C.). A full stomach can delay
death for up to four hours with the salts. Antidotes to cyanide
poisoning exist, but they have serious side effects. What you can
do, is instead of taking the salts directly, drop 500mg or so into
a strong acid, and inhale the fumes. This will be pure Hydrogen
Cyanide, and you should die in 10 to 20 seconds.
* [3]: "Hydrocyanic acid is one of the most poisonous substances
known; the inhalation of its fumes in high concentration will
cause almost immediate death. Hydrogen cyanide acts by preventing
the normal process of tissue oxidation and paralyzing the
respiratory center in the brain. Most of the accidental cases are
due to inhaling the fumes during a fumigating process. In the pure
state it kills with great rapidity. Crystalline cyanides, such as
potassium or sodium cyanide are equally poisonous, since they
interact with the hydrochloric acid in the stomach to liberate
hydrocyanic acid. This poison has been used for both homicide and
suicide; in recent history, a number of European political figures
carried vials of cyanide salt for emergency self-destruction and
some used them. Death resulted from amounts of only a fraction of
a gram. A concentration of 1 part in 500 of hydrogen cyanide gas
is fatal. Allowable working concentration in most of the United
States is 20 ppm. Two and one-half grains of liquid acid has
killed. The acid acts fatally in about 15 minutes. The cyanide
salts kill in several hours. The average dose of solution is 0.1
cc.
* [1, DGHS talking about KCN]: on an empty stomach, take a small
glass of cold tap water. (Not mineral water nor any sort of juice
or soda water because of it's acidity). Stir 1 -> 1.5 grammes of
KCN into the water. More than that causes irritation to the
throat. Wait 5 minutes to dissolve. It should be drunk within
several hours. Consciousness will be lost in about a minute. Death
will follow 15 -> 45 minutes later.
Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid)
* Dosage: 20-30+ grammes (too many cause vomitting)
* Time: hours to days, variable
* Available: easy to get hold of (get soluble ones, & dissolve them)
* Certainty: unreliable
* Notes: Not recommended, fatal dose varies wildly, could cause
liver & kidney damage instead of death. OD causes strange noises
in your ears (like a video arcade) & projectile vomiting after
about 10 hours. Medical help generally effective, so stay out of
hospital for a couple of days. May cause bleeding in your
stomach/upper intestines. Take with sodium bicarbinate (eg,
bicarb. of soda), which speeds up the absorption (sp?)
significantly. Take 1 or 2 antihistamine tablets.
Paracetamol (aka acetaminopren / tylenol)
* Dosage: 15+ grammes, 20+ is better
* Time: 10 hours fatal damage, but 2 weeks to actually die
* Available: easy to get hold of
* Certainty: fairly reliable
* Notes: Once 10-12 hours is up, you've had it, but you still live
for a week or two after that. Probably better to wait 15 hours
just to make sure. Horrible side effects during this time (some of
which are: acute toxic hepatitis, renal failure, cerebral oedema,
intra-abdominal bleeding, aspiration pneumonia, haemophilia). Too
small dose causes severe liver damage. Accidental deaths are very
common. There are few if any side effects before the damage
becomes fatal; occasionally vomitting and nausea.
Sleeping tablets (see specific notes for each kind)
* See later entries for amobarbital, butabarbital, diazepam,
flurazepam, glutethimide, chloral hydrate, hydromorphone,
meprobamate, methyprylon, meperidine (pethidine), methadone,
morphine, orphenadrine, phenobarbital [also check trade names in
same entries].
Alcohol (spirits preferably, your choice)
* Dosage: 1/2 litre vodka?, similar. Varies from person to person.
* Time: about 8 hours
* Available: good
* Certainty: unreliable
* Notes: will cause liver and kidney damage if 'rescued' before
death. Drink it all at the same time, quickly as possible. Dosage
is questionable, I don't have any figures. Taking the spirits as
an enema is supposed to be a very quick way of absorbing alcohol,
but a less unpleasant way is to inject it. The dosage it takes to
kill you depends on whether you drink normally, the state of your
liver, whether you pass out on your back or not.
* [3]: "The fatal dose of pure alcohol in an average adult is
300-400 mL (750-1000 mL of 40% alcohol) if consumed in less than
one hour. Apart from the effects of overdosage, death after
alcohol consumption can occur as a result of choking on vomit
while unconscious. ..... Consequences such as liver damage occur
after chronic consumption." Alcohol helps other drugs to dissolve.
Don't drink it in advance, wash down tablets with it, & follow by
drinking another few glasses of spirits.
Water
* Dosage: 14 litres mentioned
* Time: 12 hours or so?
* Available: always available
* Certainty: unknown
* Notes: works by washing out the salts in your body, until the
cells fail (osmotic balance buggered up). You need to keep
drinking continually until you collapse. Unusual method. Someone
suggested it would also cause cramps. The following is something
from [2]: "About a year ago a local newspaper carried a story
about a woman who had drunk herself to death. Apparently she had
ingested something mildly poisonous, and when she called her
doctor asking him what to do, he told her to drink lots of water
and see him in the morning. She got to it and managed to drink no
less than 14 litres of water before the osmotic balance in her
body was so upset it could no longer function and she died (don't
know how quickly)".
* Calle: The above anecdote originally came from me, and the death
described occured in Vdxjv, Sweden. Unfortunately I no longer
remember which newspaper I saw it in.
* Recently, I was told about a similar case in San Antonio. It
supposedly happened a couple of years ago and was reported in the
local San Antonio Express/News.
Bleach and other corrosives (lye, drain cleaning fluids)
* Dosage: A bottle (litre or half litre)
* Time: Hours/days
* Available: Easily available
* Certainty: Uncertain
* Notes: Bloody painful - depends on your stomach getting corroded,
the stomach acids escaping, and doing their dirty work in your
vital organs.
* [1] says: "I have heard of people throwing themselves through
plate glass windows in their death agonies after drinking lye."
Insulin (injected)
* Dosage: No idea
* Time: death in hours to days
* Available: Difficult to get hold of unless you're a diabetic or a
vet
* Certainty: reasonable
* Notes: Supposed to be quite pleasant (eg insulin shock treatments
used for some psychiatric condition).
Petrol (in lungs/injected)
* Dosage: "A Thimble-full" -20 ml?
* Time: Seconds/minutes
* Available: Common
* Certainty: I'm not sure of the dosage, but fairly certain if
correct
* Notes: Can also use LPG (propane/butane) on skin surface (since
these are light enough to go through the skin). Stick your hand in
a bucket of propane and see how many seconds you last...
Oil of Wintergreen/Methyl Salicylate (in lungs/injected)
* Dosage: Probably similar to petrol (20 ml)
* Time: Don't know
* Available: Not available in concentration
* Certainty: Don't know
* Notes: Don't have enough information on this one to be able to say
anything about it. If it is just taken normally, it is the same as
aspirin.
Malathion (insecticide) (entry revised by Calle)
* Dosage: A few bottles, at least
* Time: 2 to 3 hours
* Available: From a large garden centre or DIY shop
* Certainty: not so good
* Notes: A correspondent mentions that the LD50 of this stuff is 1
g/kg in rats, and adds that there is not nearly that much in a
bottle. He also mentions that it is treatable. Instead of this, he
recommends parathion, if you really want to use an insecticide.
Phosphine gas from aluminium phosphide pesticide (ALP)
* Dosage: Single 3 gramme tablet (".. is enough to kill 10 people")
* Time: About 2 hours
* Available: Difficult. Used in India, sold on black market.
* Certainty: Without medical help, and using fresh pill, very good
* Notes: This is a common way of committing suicide in Indian
villages. There is no specific antidote to this. The pills are 3
grammes of ALP, which produces lethal phosphine gas when it comes
in contact with hydrochloric acid or water in the stomach. After
severe vomiting, the victim loses consciousness, the blood vessels
rupture, and body cavities fill with blood. While the pill is
exceedingly lethal, some escape death because the rate of the gas'
release declines with the pill's age and use, and exposure to
moisture. Trouble with this one is the availability, and it also
looks like a rather unpleasant.
Rat poison (Warfarin)
* Dosage: not known
* Time: Hours to terminal damage, days to actual death
* Available: Available
* Certainty: Certain given suffient dosage. Most probably treatable.
* Notes: This is one of the truly unpleasant poisons, along with
Paracetamol/Acetylminopren. I think it causes cerebral haemorage
(rat poison works by giving the unfortunate rat haemophillia).
Doctors can't do anything about it, they just leave you to die in
agony on an intensive care ward.
* Calle: Since human haemophiliacs usually live quite ordinary
lives, the above sounds rather improbable.
Caffeine
* Dosage: 20 grammes (someone said 8 -> 10 grammes)
* Time: not known
* Available: Caffeine tablets available in Chemist shops
* Certainty: don't know
* Notes: I don't know very much about this. There isn't all that
much caffeine in coffee, maybe 200 mg.
Potassium Chloride (injected in solution) / KCl
* Dosage: not known (try 20cc injection of strong solution)
* Time: Seconds to minutes
* Available: Widely available
* Certainty: Certain given correct dosage
* Notes: Causes heart attack (which is painful). May be difficult
for coroner to realise it was suicide rather than a natural heart
attack. An excess of K+ in the blood interferes with nerve
signals, and stops muscles and nerves from working. So when it
reaches your heart, the heart stops.
Nitrogen gas (or other inert gas)
* Dosage: Several litres uncompressed is minimum
* Time: Minutes
* Available: Try plumber, or welding supplies company
* Certainty: Certain
* Notes: This is really a form of asphyxiation, (see later), but is
particularly good since you don't experience the lack of oxygen
(what people really experience is the EXCESS of carbon dioxide).
Nitrous oxide (N20? NO2?)
* Dosage: Unknown
* Time: Minutes
* Available: Dentists supply would be good
* Certainty: reasonable
* Notes: Asphyxiate yourself with laughing gas. Nice.
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
* Dosage: 5% concentration or so?
* Time: Minutes to hours depending on concentration
* Available: You get it out of a car exhaust, you used to be able to
use "town gas" (eg, stick your head in the cooker) but this is no
longer available
* Certainty: Fairly certain, as long as you aren't "rescued"
* Notes: Causes brain damage.
* Calle: A correspondent from Denmark, where you still can use "town
gas" to kill yourself, says that even though it's possible it's
not a good idea. He tells of an incident where a family committed
suicide by turning on the gas and waiting. Apparently, the
heavier-than-air carbon monoxide leaked through the floor and
reached the people in the apartment below. Not nice.
* The actual cause of death is asphyxiation, since the carbon
monoxide binds tighter to haemoglobine than oxygen does (the
oxygen gets crowded out, so to speak).
Chlorine gas
* Dosage: not known
* Time: not known
* Available: tricky
* Certainty: Good
* Notes: This was used in the first world war in the trenches.
Probably very unpleasant, does something to the lungs.
Hydrazine
* Dosage: As produced by reaction
* Time: Not known, fortnight?
* Available: Bottle of bleach & bottle of ammonia
* Certainty: not known
* Notes: [2]: "This is no joke, D----. Several years ago at my high
school, one of the janitors innocently mixed together half a
bottle of bleach with half a bottle of of ammonia in a small
closet where the cleaning fluids were kept. He passed out due to
the hydrazine (not chlorine) gas released in the reaction between
the two chemicals. This man was in agony for two weeks in an
intensive care unit in a local hospital with the majority of the
inside surface of his lungs damaged and untreatable before he got
lucky and died."
Chloroform
* Dosage: not known, just put a splash onto a rag
* Time: several minutes probably
* Available: not known
* Certainty: good
* Notes: If you tape the rag over your mouth so that you get knocked
out, you should die as you continue getting the stuff into your
lungs.
Digitalis (Foxglove, Digitalis Purpurea)
* Dosage: not known
* Time: not known
* Available: extract from foxgloves
* Certainty: bad due to vomiting
* Notes: [4]: Gives you a heart-attack. Symptoms: nausea, vomiting,
abdominal pain, diarrhoea, headache, and slow irregular pulse.
Also sometimes trembling, convulsions, delirium, and
hallucinations. Its difficult to take a fatal amount because
vomiting usually gets rid of it.
Yew (Taxus Baccata, the "English Yew")
* Dosage: not known
* Time: Can be very rapid (minutes), occasionally 3 or 4 days.
* Available: Grows wild in the UK, don't know about elsewhere.
* Certainty: not sure, but it sounds good if you eat enough
* Notes: [4]: All parts of the plant, _except_ for the fleshy red
bit of the fruit, contain poisons. The seeds are poisonous, so if
you eat the berries, chew them. Symptoms: nausea, abdominal pain,
coma, death. The mode of death is a heart attack which occurs
rapidly after eating sufficient. If no heart attack occurs, you'll
probably survive. Sometimes the sudden collapse leading to death
is preceded by lethargy, trembling, staggering, coldness, dilation
of the pupils, rapid pulse that becomes weak, and convulsions.
Other species in this genus are said to be equally poisonous. See
"plants in general".
Mezerein, Daphnetoxin (Mezereon, AKA Daphne Mezereum, AKA D. Laureola)
* Dosage: "a few". Probably 10 or more.
* Time: not known
* Available: Garden plant. Seeds are particularly poisonous.
* Certainty: not known, dosage is questionable.
* Notes: [4]: The berries taste horrid, but you only need to eat a
few to cause death. Symptoms: burning sensation in mouth, nausea,
vomiting, stomach pains, diarrhoea, weakness, disorientation,
convulsions, followed by death. The seeds can be dried and stored
without affecting the poisons. Don't confuse this with laurels in
the Prunus genus, Rosacea family. See "plants in general".
Atropine (Atropa Belladonna AKA Deadly Nightshade. Also potato fruits)
* Dosage: 5 berries in young children.. maybe 30 in adults?
* Time: 6 to 24 hours
* Available: from fruits of some plants in the potato family.
* Certainty: unknown, particularly dosage is questionable
* Notes: [4]: AB also contains hyoscyamine and hyoscine
(scopolamine). Symptoms: dry mouth, flushed face, dilation of
pupils, rapid pulse. Possibly also breathing difficulties,
constipation, convulsions, hallucinations, and coma. AB is often
confused with other Nightshade species, which aren't as poisonous.
The berries are black in AB, and red in Woody Nightshade. In
addition, the flowers are larger (1.2 in) in the true Deadly
Nightshade. Present in unripe deadly nightshake fruits, fruits of
potato, and fruits of other members of this family (not tomato
though!), but stick with AB. See the "plants in general" entry.
* Calle: A correspondent mentions that Jimsonweed will also do, and
that a specific antidote exists.
Oleander (Nerium Oleander. Poison similar to digitalis)
* Dosage: not known, but fairly small amounts.
* Time: unknown.
* Available: leaves, wood of the plant. From garden centres.
* Certainty: unknown.
* Notes: [4]: Deaths have been caused by using wood from this plant
in fires, and making tea from the leaves. In a few hours there is
abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhoea, rapid pulse,
and visual effects. Later, a slow, weak, irregular pulse and fall
in blood pressure, followed by failure of heart. See the "plants
in general" entry.
Death-Cap / Destroying-Angel toadstool (Amanita Phalloides)
* Dosage: Fraction of one can kill, but eat 1 or 2 just in case.
* Time: Week or so
* Available: Have to know what it looks like.. similar edible ones
* Certainty: Definite without med. treatment; unknown with.
* Notes: [5, Volume 7, pp591-592]: "Poisoning by toxic Amanita
species is characterised by a delay in onset of 4 to 12 hours. At
this point, nausea vomiting, colic-like pain, and diarrhea occur.
There then follows a period of respite, which can last for two to
four days. This phase does NOT signify recovery: damage to the
liver and kidneys continues to develop and the respite gives way
to hepatic and renal failure. Death usually occurs a week or so
after poisoning.". See "plants in general".
Ricin (Castor oil plant, Ricinus Communis)
* Dosage: death has occured from eating 1 bean, but take more than
10
* Time: within 3 to 5 days
* Available: From eating the castor beans
* Certainty: depends on ricin content of the beans. Pure ricin is
deadly
* Notes: [2] and [4]: Symptoms begin within a few hours with
abdominal pain, vomiting and bloody diarrhoea for several days.
Decreased production of urine and a fall in blood pressure. Note
that people have survived eating more than 10 beans, *with
treatment*. Presumably the fatal dose without medical intervention
is less. Surviving more than 3 to 5 days usually means recovery.
Ricin is described as "..one of the most potent toxins known".
* In 1978 a Bulgarian journalist (Georgi Markov) was assassinated in
London by being prodded with an umbrella. The umbrella had a tiny
ball coated with ricin on its tip, which lodged into the
dissident. He died a few days later in hospital. See "plants in
general".
Colchicine (Acetyltrimethylcolchicinic acid, Autumn Crocus, Royal
Lily)
* Dosage: 7 mg to 60 mg (why so wide variation?)
* Time: symptoms in about 4 hours, death in about 4 days
* Available: Easily available (from large garden centre)
* Certainty: certain
* Notes: [New Scientist article:] From the Autumn crocus (Colchicum
Autumnale) / royal lily (Gloriosa Superba). One flower of CA is
about 12 mg, so take at least five of them. 20g tuber of GS
provides 60mg, single seed of CA provides 3.5mg (so take 18).
Damages blood vessels and nerves, and stops cell division. Don't
know whether its painful or not, but that bit about damaging
nerves is worrying. I just _love_ the name of the acid! See See
the "plants in general" entry.
Aconitine (AKA Wolfsbane, Monkshood, aconitum napellus, a. anglicum)
* Dosage: "a few grams"
* Time: 10 mins to few hours
* Available: Garden plant, so get from garden centre
* Certainty: unknown (can be treated in hospital)
* Notes: [2] and [4]: The poison is concentrated in the unripe seed
pods and roots. During winter, the roots are particularly
poisonous. Symptoms develop in less than an hour. Burning
sensation, feelings of coldness, sweating. Later, numbness,
vomiting and diarrhoea with abdominal pain. Finally, slow pulse,
convulsions and coma. Death may occur within 2 hours. The poison
kills by causing a cardiac failure, and it is painful. See the
"plants in general" comment.
Cicutoxin (Cowbane, Cicuta Virosa)
* Dosage: ".. a few bites .. can cause serious poisoning or death".
* Time: a few hours or more.
* Available: rare in most parts of UK, don't know about elsewhere.
* Certainty: good, but resembles wild carrot & wild parsnip.
* Notes: [4]: The poison is strongest in the yellow juice of the
underground parts. Symptoms after half an hour: burning of mouth,
excessive saliva, flushing, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, dilation
of pupils, and later a bluish tinge to the skin. Muscular
contractions and convulsions, with difficulties in breathing are
followed by unconsciousness and death, often within a few hours of
eating the plant. See "plants in general".
Coniine, Gamma-Coniceine, others (Hemlock, Conium Maculatum)
* Dosage: unknown
* Time: unknown
* Available: Grows throughout UK, except north. Don't know about
elsewhere.
* Certainty: unknown
* Notes: [4]: NOTE: There are many plants called "hemlock", some of
which aren't poisonous at all. It can also be mistaken for wild
parsley and carrot, and is in the same family as Cowbane. Symptoms
appear in 15 mins to 2 hours. Initially burning and dryness of the
mouth, muscular weakness leading to paralysis that affects the
breathing. Sometimes also dilation of pupils, vomiting, diarrhoea,
convulsions, and loss of consciousness. If this is survived, birth
defects may be caused in pregnant women.
* This is said to be the plant that Socrates took in 399 BC.
Oenanthetoxin (Hemlock Water Dropwort, Oenanthe Eroeata)
* Dosage: "..dangerously poisonous, even in small quantities".
* Time: Two to twelve hours.
* Available: Grows in chalky wet areas, particularly S and W
Britain.
* Certainty: Fairly good, if you get the right species.
* Notes: [4]: The tubers contain more poison than the rest of the
plant, particularly in winter and early spring, and may be cooked
or dried. Symptoms within an hour or two, nausea, salivation,
vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating, weakness of legs, dilation of
pupils. Later loss of consciousness with convulsions before death.
See "plants in general" entry. Same family as Hemlock.
plants in general (hemlock, foxglove, oleander)
* Dosage: N/A
* Time: N/A
* Available: garden centre
* Certainty: questionable
* Notes: [1] says:
"Everything I have ever read about death from plant poisoning
indicates that it is risky and painful. Symptoms range from nausea
and vomiting to cramping and bloody diarrhea. .... .. Altogether, I
consider poisonous plants as a means of exit far too unreliable and
painful. No matter how desperate you are, don't even think about
it!"
Nicotine (Rewritten by Calle)
* Dosage: extract from 100g tabacco? 40-60 mg pure.
* Time: Several hours, coma may set in much earlier. Much quicker if
taken in large doses.
* Available: Easily available
* Certainty: Fairly certain, given a large enough dose.
* Notes: This is what Mike wrote:
"Soak 100 grammes of tabacco for a few days. You get a brown mess.
Strain off the tabacco, then simmer slowly until most of the liquid
has gone, leaving about 2 teaspoons of brown treacle-like stuff.
Add it to your night-time drink, and never wake up. Someone said
the other day that 150mg of pure nicotine would be fatal in
seconds. See the "plants in general" entry."
* It is correct, as far as I have found out. It can be added that
the effects include violent convulsions and that the direct cause
of death is respiratory failure. Smokers should use larger doses
than non-smokers.
Iron (diet suppliments)
* Dosage: unknown
* Time: unknown
* Available: diet, health food shops
* Certainty: good
* Notes: [2]:
"Well it seems that iron pills achieve death. They oxydize in the
stomach and eat a hole in it. The only reason I know this is that
someone at my school just recently OD'd and died from this. It was
ruled suicide since no person could accidently take that many iron
pills. They didn't say how many she took or how many it takes to
kill yourself though." [sounds unpleasant]
Cocaine
* Dosage: 1 ounce (don't know what that is in real weights..)
* Time: 2 to 3 hours?
* Available: Difficult
* Certainty: not known
* Notes: Read something in a newspaper... a coke dealer died after
eating an ounce of it, when the police raided his house. Cause of
death was a cardiac arrest 2 1/2 hours after the overdose.
However, a cocaine OD is painful, and causes paranoia / breathing
problems. One form of cocaine smuggling is to swallow condoms
filled with the stuff. From time to time, a "mule" has a condom
burst inside him, and dies in pain reasonably quickly.
LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) nonfatal
* Dosage: infinite!
* Time: never
* Available: who cares?
* Certainty: will not kill you
* Notes: LSD can't kill you by overdose.. you might go psychotic if
you take tens/hundreds of thousands of times the normal dose, but
thats hardly surprising, since you'd have to be insane to take
that much in the first place. General warning - even for normal
use, if you are depressed, it'll just amplify the depression, not
lift it, and the chances of a bad trip are probably higher.
Probably, the only way to kill yourself with this stuff is to drop
two tonnes of it on yourself.
* Calle: I don't quite believe in what Mike is saying about
psychosis here. As far as I have been able to find out, LSD works
by catalyzing certain substances in the brain, and thus vast
overdoses have no more effect than merely large ones. Once all the
stuff in your brain is used up, there will be no more effect.
* A correspondent points out a case reported by The Journal of
Clinical Toxicology where eight people snorted pure LSD Tartrate,
beliving that it was cocaine. The amounts ingested was estimated
to be from 1000 to 10000 times an ordinary dose. Half of them
lapsed into comas, but all of them came out of it without any
treatment. Some were given Valium for anxiety efterwards.
* On the whole, it seems that LSD is about as safe as a drug can be,
despite much propaganda saying otherwise.
Heroin (morphine)
* Dosage: 120 to 500 mg in non-users.
* Time: unknown
* Available: From your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer.
* Certainty: unknown
* Notes: Combine it with alcohol, since a combination of alc & H is
much more dangerous than alc or H alone.
Rotenone
* Dosage: very low, similar to cyanide
* Time: depends on dosage
* Available: extremely difficult
* Certainty: probable
* Notes: Rotenone is used by microbiologists to kill potentially
dangerous bacteria cultures. It is extremely poisonous.
* Calle: A correspondent believes this entry to be erroneous, since
in the litterature he consulted rotenone was mentioned as being
used as an insecticide and not being all that toxic.
Mercury (salts, soluble)
* Dosage: 1 gramme of salts
* Time: unknown
* Available: unknown (what are the _soluble_ salts? how to make?)
* Certainty: good
* Notes: Note that contrary to popular opinion, pure mercury metal
isn't all that poisonous. The soluble salts are, however. The "mad
hatter" story refers to brain damage that hat makers used to get
from using mercury salts.
Amobarbital (amytal, amal, eunoctal, etamyl, stadadorm)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 4.5 grammes, typically 90 50mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable
* Notes: use an airtight plastic bag, and a rubber band to get a
very effective method. Alcohol speeds it up and makes it more
reliable. Take an antihistamine about 10 minutes earlier. Empty
stomach. Dissolve most of them in drink / food, and eat the
remaining ones first so that it all peaks at the same time.
Butabarbital (secbutobarbitone, butisol, ethnor)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 3 grammes, typically 100 30mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach.
Codeine (combo. with Aspirin: Empirin compound no. I -> IV)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 2.4 grammes, typically 80 30mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. People can become tolerant to this drug, and it
will no longer be effective.
Diazepam (valium, apozepam, aliseum, ducene)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 500 milligrammes, typically 100 5mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
(alcohol?)
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. Valium is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes it more certain.
Flurazepam (dalmane, dalmadorm, niotal)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 3 grammes, typically 100 30mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Gluthethimide (doriden, doridene, glimid)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 24 grammes, typically 48 500mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Chloral Hydrate (noctec, chloratex, somnox)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: >10+ grammes, typically 20+ 500mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Hydromorphone (dilaudid, pentagone)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 100 -> 200 milligrammes, typically 50 -> 100 2mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. People can become tolerant to this drug, and it
will no longer be effective.
Meprobamate (miltown, equanil)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 45 grammes, typically 112 400mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Methyprylon (noludar)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 15 grammes, typically 50 300mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Meperidine (pethidine, demerol, dolantin)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 3.6 grammes, typically 72 50mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. People can become tolerant to this drug, and it
will no longer be effective.
Methadone (dolophine, adanon)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 300 milligrammes, typically 60 5mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. People can become tolerant to this drug, and it
will no longer be effective.
Morphine (in Brompton's mixtures)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 200 milligrammes, typically 14 15mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. People can become tolerant to this drug, and it
will no longer be effective.
Phenobarbital (luminal, gardenal, fenical)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 4.5 grammes, typically 150 30mg tablets
* Time: N/A
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: unreliable, use in combination with something else
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. This is not effective by itself, but by mixing it
with other drugs or alcohol it makes the other drug more certain.
Secobarbital (quinalbarbitone, seconal, immenox, dormona, secogen,
....., seral, vesperax (combo with brallobarbital))
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 4.5 grammes, typically 45 100mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. [Vesperax is Humphry's favorite]
Propoxyphene (darvon, dolotard, abalgin, antalvic, depronal)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 2 grammes, typically 30 65mg tablets
* Time: death in an hour or so. Does not make you unconscious
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: suggest combine with something to make you sleep, then
use bag
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach. Since this one doesn't make you unconscious for a
long time, try combining with one that does, so you can use the
good old bag method.
Pentobarbital (nembutal, carbrital only if in combo with
pentobarbital)
[this entry from [1]]
* Dosage: 3 grammes, typically 30 100mg tablets
* Time: unconscious in 5 -> 15 minutes, death in 20 -> 50 minutes
* Available: needs to be prescribed
* Certainty: very reliable with plastic bag and rubber band
* Notes: use bag & band. Alcohol as well as antihistamine on an
empty stomach.
_________________________________________________________________
Part 2 - Methods: Other than poisoning
HANGING
1. asphyxiation (dangle on end of rope for 10 minutes)
+ Time: 5 to 10 minutes
+ Available: Rope, solid support 10 foot above ground
+ Certainty: Fairly certain (discovery, rope/support snapping)
+ Notes: Brain damage likely if rescued. Very painful depending
on rope. Most common effective form of suicide in UK. See
"Asphyxiation".
2. breaking neck
+ Time: Should be instant if it does break. See previous if not
+ Available: Rope, solid support, 10 foot space below, several
above
+ Certainty: Very certain if the rope/support doesn't break
+ Notes: Minimal danger of discovery (depends on location).
Painless if you drop far enough (8 foot is optimum). Make
sure that the rope is tied securely to something STRONG!! It
has to support your weight MULTIPLIED by the deccelleration.
Use a hangman's knot (with the knot at the back of your
neck). It doesn't always work this well though, you might get
a bust jaw / lacerations etc and then asphyxiate.
+ Calle: I got this table of appropriate falling heights from
a.s.h. long-time regular MegaZone (megazone@wpi.wpi.edu), who
got it from a friend of his named Mark.
Hanging Drop Heights...
Culprits Weight Drop
14 stone (196 lbs) 8ft 0in
13.5 stone (189 lbs) 8ft 2in
13 stone (182 lbs) 8ft 4in
12.5 stone (175 lbs) 8ft 6in
12 stone (168 lbs) 8ft 8in
11.5 stone (161 lbs) 8ft 10in
11 stone (154 lbs) 9ft 0in
10.5 stone (147 lbs) 9ft 2in
10 stone (140 lbs) 9ft 4in
9.5 stone (133 lbs) 9ft 6in
9 stone (126 lbs) 9ft 8in
8.5 stone (119 lbs) 9ft 10in
8 stone (112 lbs) 10ft 0in
Source: Charles Duff, Handbook of Hanging
(Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint 1929)
+ Notes: This is for person of average build with no unusual
physical problems. The Author (James "Hangman" Barry) noted
that when executing "persons who had attempted suicide by
cutting their throats...to prevent reoping the wounds I have
reduced the drop by nearly half."
JUMPING OFF BUILDINGS
* Time: Instantanious if you are lucky, minutes/hours otherwise
* Available: You need ten stories or higher, and access to the top
floor windows/roof. Bring a bolt cutter to get onto the roof
* Certainty: 90% for 6 stories, increasing after that
* Notes: Difficult to overcome fear of heights, many people can't do
it. Totally painless if high enough, but very frightening. Easily
discovered if seen on/near roof/windows. Access fairly easy in a
city, otherwise difficult. Risk of spending the rest of your life
in a wheelchair. Ever tried killing yourself if you are paralysed
from the neck down? Email conversations suggest 10+ stories works
ALMOST all of the time. Try to land on concrete. Quote - "9 out of
10 people who fall 6 stories will die". Note that it may take a
while for many of those 90% to die.
SLITTING WRISTS OR OTHER (often not effective)
* Time: Minutes if major artery cut, eternity otherwise.
* Available: You really need a razor sharp knife. Razors are pretty
tricky to hold when they are covered with blood.
* Certainty: possible if you cut an artery, improbable otherwise
* Notes: Painful at first. Danger of discovery. This is a very
common suicide 'gesture' and hardly ever results in anything other
than a scar. A lot of will power required to cut deeply into groin
or carotid arteries, which are the only ones likely to kill you.
Don't bother with this method. Cutting your throat is difficult
due to the fact that the carotid arteries are protected by your
windpipe (feel where your arteries are with your fingertips, &
slice from the side). I've seen photos of people who have used
this method - the depth of the cut required is amazing. If you
want to cut your wrists, cut along the blue line (vein) on the
underside of your wrist, but cut deeply so that the artery
underneath is exposed. Cut this lengthways with a razor or
similar. The traditional hot bath does help, since it keeps the
blood flowing quickly, slows down clotting, and is nice to lie
back and relax in. Position yourself so that your wrists don't
fall inwards against your body, blocking off blood flow.
* Calle: A posting to A.S.H. suggests using the kind of equipment
they use when you give blood to a blood bank, i.e., a needle in a
blood vessel and a piece of tubing. It sounds like it would remove
several of the disadvantages of the ordinary slitting-wrists
method.
BULLET
* Time: Microseconds unless you are unlucky (mins/hours)
* Available: Difficult in UK, easier in USA (get a shotgun)
* Certainty: Certain
* Notes: Painless if worked, otherwise painful & brain damage.
Danger of discovery of weapon or ammunition. Not at all common in
UK, more common in USA where guns available. Brain damage & other
effects if you survive. Death either instantaneous, or prolonged.
Lots of will power needed to fire gun ('hesitation marks' are
bullets/pellets embedded in the wall, when you jerk the gun as you
fire). Bullet can miss vital parts in skull, deflect off skull. If
you have a choice, use a shotgun rather than a rifle of a pistol,
since it is so much more effective. ("shotgun" entry later).
Ammunition to use is: .458 Winchester Magnum, or soft-point slugs
with .44 Magnum. Also you could use a sabot round, which is a
plastic wedge with a smaller thing in it. These rounds are rather
overkill, the phrase "elephant gun" has been used about the .458
Winchester, but if you're going to go, do it with a bang. Note,
people usually survive single .22 shots to the temples. The other
problem with guns is that is is bloody messy. Your next of kin
will really _enjoy_ cleaning up after you, washing the coagulated
blood & brains out of corners etc...
ASPHYXIATION
* Time: 5 mins to unconciousness, 10+ mins to brain death
* Available: Anywhere there's a rope and something solid to tie it
to
* Certainty: Certain, if you don't get "rescued"
* Notes: Panic reaction is very likely (unless inert gasses used).
One of the most effective and most used methods of suicide.
Probable brain damage if you are "rescued".
* NOTE, this can only really be done in two ways: firstly, when you
are unconsious (eg, sleeping pills), or secondly, by hanging.
Combining with pure inert gasses is a very good suggestion. See
"Nitrogen" in the poisons section
AIR IN VEINS (basically just a myth)
* Time: Couple of minutes claimed
* Available: Plenty of air about... Need a hypodermic & syringe
* Certainty: only 1 known case.. patient may already have been dead
* Notes: The only case I know about, it killed with 40cc of air.
Smaller amounts are harmless. The case was the death of Abbie
Borroto, who died in 1950 from a 40cc injection in New Hampshire.
She died in minutes. This was the 1949 Dr H Sander case. He was
found not guilty to murder on the grounds that the patient may
already have been dead when he gave the injection. (A doctor and a
nurse could find no pulse earlier the same day).
* The following 2 quotes are from [1]: Prof. Y Kenis says:
"... not a suitable method, nor a gentle death... extremely
difficult to utilize as a method of suicide. .. possibly with very
serious consequences, such as paralysis or permanent brain damage.
.. this is only an impression, and I have no real scientific
information on the subject."
Dr Pieter V Admiraal .. describes the theoretical air bubble
method of suicide as impossible, disagreeable and cruel.
"To kill somebody with air you would have to inject at least 100 ->
200 millilitres as quickly as possible in a vein as big as possible
close to the heart. You would have to fill the whole heart with air
at once. The heart would probably beat on for several minutes,
perhaps 5 -> 15 minutes, and during the first minutes the person
may be conscious."
DECAPITATION
* Time: Couple of seconds before conciousness fades
* Available: Happen to have a train line nearby? Or a guillotine
perhaps?
* Certainty: Very certain, unless you pull away just before
* Notes: See "jumping in front of trains". May be difficult to stop
pulling your head out of the way - OD on sleeping tablets first
* Calle: A news notice from California posted to alt.suicide.holiday
tells the story of a man who comitted suicide nearly cut his own
head off with a chainsaw. Sounds like a grisly way to do it.
DISEMBOWELMENT (aka seppuku/hara kiri)
* Time: Minutes
* Available: Got a nice razor-sharp sword?
* Certainty: Fairly certain, assuming that you managed to gut
yourself properly before passing out with the agony
* Notes: Painful, even the macho Samurai used a 'second' to
decapitate them at the appropriate point, so don't expect to do
much more than give yourself peritonitis. Trendy for insane
martial arts fanatics and gay Japanese poets called Mishima.
DROWNING
* Time: Minutes (5 mins to die of drowning, 20 to die of
hypothermia)
* Available: Anywhere there's deep, (cold) water in a remote spot
* Certainty: Good, just make sure you sink & can't swim
* Notes: Put stones in your pockets, tie your legs & hands together,
and hop into the lake.. bit of a shock to the fisherman who finds
your rotting corpse stuck in his brand new net. Also see entry for
"hypothermia/freezing". However, remember that you can be revived
from cold water drowning after several hours, because the cold
slows down terminal brain damage. Warmer water doesn't have the
advantage of hypothermia, but is more effective in making sure you
*stay* dead.
ELECTROCUTION
* Time: Seconds / minutes
* Available: Anywhere with high-tension, high-current lines & a good
earth
* Certainty: Somewhat dependant on luck & how much power goes
through you
* Notes: Don't bother with 110 or 240 volt mains, its just not
enough. Some people do get killed with household electricity, but
only after several minutes. Use high tension lines, stand in bare
feet on waterlogged ground (better still, put a piece of THICK
copper cable into the nearest river). Works best if current path
travels through your head, or through the heart. Just burns you
badly otherwise.
* NOTE: people have survived massive high-voltage, high-current
shocks with nothing but 3rd degree burns to show for it. Sometimes
paralysis, limbs amputated etc.
EXPLOSIVES
* Time: 10 milliseconds, or similar (!)
* Available: Difficult to get hold of detonator & good explosives
* Certainty: Certain if detonator works properly
* Notes: DON'T USE GUNPOWDER or other 'slow' explosives (eg,
homemade explosives). Use dynamite or 'Plastique', strap it to
your forehead with the detonator, and BOOM! The main problem is
with getting hold of high explosives (I know the recipe for
Nitro-Glycerine, but home manufacture is extremely risky, and the
product is unstable). If you can get a grenade, use it, it's
probably the best way of doing this one.
* Calle: Recipies for creating explosives can be found, together
with the appropriate warnings, in the rec.pyrotechnics FAQ.
FREEZING TO DEATH (hypothermia)
* Time: several hours (15 minutes in very cold water)
* Available: Got a large chest freezer? Is the outside temp < -10
degrees?
* Certainty: good if you don't get found
* Notes: Soak your cloths in water, get into freezer / outside
somewhere where you won't be found. Helps to get pissed first -
drink yourself silly. If you are near a very cold supply of water
(eg, the North Sea, or similar) which is close to zero degrees,
this is particularly good, since the average lifespan of someone
in the water is 15 minutes.
* [1] says:
".. have quietly ascended their favorite mountain late in the day
.. above the freezing line.. wearing light clothing, they sat down
in a secluded spot to await the end. Some have said that they
intended to take a tranquilizer to hasten the sleep of death. From
what we know of hypothermia, they would pass out as the cold
reached a certain level and they would die within a few hours. Of
course in a very cold climate there is no need to climb a
mountain."
[eg, UK in midwinter :-). There was a death in the middle of the
city park here just this last winter ('90) where a lady stripped
after the park closed for the night.] A problem with this method
is that because it slows the metabolism, and prevents damage to
the brain, people can be revived several hours after 'death'
occasionally.
JUMPING IN FRONT OF TRAINS
* Time: Seconds (or hours if unlucky)
* Available: Anywhere near a HIGH-SPEED railway line
* Certainty: Depends on your timing & speed of train. Go for
decapitation
* Notes: Probably better to put your neck on the line, since a
glancing blow would probably break your spine (& cripple you).
High speed trains need a kilometer to stop, so find a blind
corner.
SELF-IMMOLATION
* Time: Seconds to days
* Available: Anywhere you can get petrol & a match
* Certainty: good as long as you are far away from medical help
* Notes: bloody painful - one of the most agonising ways to die. If
you do survive, you will be disfigured for the rest of your life.
* Try mixing the petrol with an explosive like TNT or NG, this will
make it burn MUCH quicker, even if the explosive is very dilute.
STARVING TO DEATH
* Time: 40 days give or take. Depends on health.
* Available: Anywhere where you can't be force-fed
* Certainty: Good as long as no medical help & will power holds up
* Notes: Supposed to be easier after the first couple of days, since
your appetite goes. In a UK prison, you can't be force-fed unless
you give permission first, or are diagnosed insane, but I don't
know whether this is the same in other countries. Beware -
relatives might give permission on your behalf if you are
unconsious. (living will / durable power of attorney helps). It
may help if you use an appetite suppressant. Amphetamines, and
some drugs (MDMA, AKA XTC, AKA ecstasy, AKA
metheylenedimethoxymethamphetamine is one such). The problem with
these is that they are frequently illegal. I've also heard of
something called Aminorex (4-methylaminorex) which was briefly
prescribed as an appetite suppressant, but taken off the market
since it had fatal side effects... which is hardly a problem!!
* [1] says:
".. after approximately 20 % of body weight loss, illness will
begin to set in, notably severe indigestion, muscle weakness, and
_worst of all_ mental incapacity. ... about 40 days before life is
seriously theatened. ...."
"In some cases self-starvation can be very painful. ... morphene
had to be administered to kill the pain of fatal dehydration. .."
DRIVING INTO BRIDGE SUPPORT AT 100 MPH
* Time: Hopefully instantanious
* Available: Fast car, motorway, unprotected bridge....
* Certainty: So-so, put a couple of cans of petrol on the passenger
seat to make it certain, & USE YOUR SEATBELT
* Notes: Bridges are usually protected in the UK, don't know about
USA. Avoid being thrown out of the car by using the seatbelt, and
put petrol (in cans or just splashed about) near to the driver's
seat just to make certain. Can be made to look accidental.
SHOTGUN
* Time: Instantanious if you are lucky
* Available: Difficult in UK, easier in USA (due to gun laws)
* Certainty: Fairly certain
* Notes: 12-gauge shotgun with 3 inch Magnum shells with #2 to #000
buckshot. See "Bullet" for other points. This is the recommended
way to die by firearm. Apparently the shells suggested here are
"extreme overkill", but thats the point really... problem here is
that its amazingly messy - who is going to pick the festering
lumps of gore out of the carpet? Another problem is that it is
possible to miss your brain entirely, and just blow off your face
instead.
ENLIST (silly)
* Time: Jan 15 '91 or other conflict
* Available: Just pop down to the local army office & sign on as a
squaddie
* Certainty: Be a "hero". Life expectancy in a battle is 20 minutes
* Notes: I don't think this is an entirely serious suggestion,
particularly since only 10% ever see the front line, and only a
few of those ever see combat.
* Calle: You could always get employed as a mercenary. That way
you'll at least see combat, improving your chances to die vastly.
Still, a silly method.
PENCILS UP YOUR NOSE, BANG DOWN ONTO TABLE (urban legend?)
* Time: Seconds or never
* Available: All you need is a couple of sharp pencils and a table
* Certainty: Very uncertain
* Notes: This is a myth, I think, since the pencils would go into
your frontal lobes, which are basically optional. This is the
legendary "exam suicide". Fine if you want a DIY frontal- lobotomy
rather than death!
* Calle: This is an urban legend, see the alt.folklore.urban FAQ for
more details.
GETTING SOMEONE TO MURDER YOU
* Time: Depends on method used
* Available: Know any murderous psychopaths? No, not the tax
people...
* Certainty: Depends on method used, & dedication of murderer
* Notes: Forget it. Unless you contract someone to do it, the
chances are that you are going to wake up in hospital without your
wallet. If you do contract someone, how are you going to pay them?
Can't take them to court for running off with your money and not
doing the job.
MAKE YOURSELF INTO AN H-BOMB (another silly one)
* Time: Speed of light over 1/2 metre (couple of nanoseconds)
* Available: Nuke (fission OR fusion), 10 litres of heavy water
* Certainty: 100%
* Notes: Drink the heavy water for several days, strap yourself to
the nuke, and press the button. If you retained a couple of litres
of the heavy water, the additional yield should be 6 megajoules
(give or take a few orders of magnitude). Note that heavy water is
a poison, so you might not survive that long anyway.
* Calle: If I remember my physics correctly, there will be no
reaction in your body no matter how much heavy water you have
ingested. Not that it matters if you're sitting on an exploding
hydrogen bomb!
MICROMACHINES/NANOCOMPUTERS (science fiction)
* Time: years or a fraction of a second - depends how you look at it
* Available: in 50 -> 1000 years time?
* Certainty: Good assuming that the technology is developed
* Notes: Basically, this involves a 'replicator' panel. You program
it to replicate yourself, simplifying very slightly, with the
exception of the urge to use this technique. After a while, you
turn into a mindless zombie, trudging around from the exit of the
machine to the entrance, for eternity. Strange philosophical
implications.
* Calle: If you postulate nanomachines, why not use the
deconstructor kind? Take your body apart into its component
molecules in less than a minute... A silly method, if you hadn't
guessed.
SCUBA-DIVING (various fatal 'accidents')
* Time: see notes -most are minutes/hours
* Available: scuba diving gear, nobody around
* Certainty: see notes
* Notes: The first method is to rise 30 metres or so without
releasing your breath. Assuming that you can do it, it should
cause your lungs to burst. The second is the bends - stay under
long enough for the nitrogen to dissolve (30 metres for 30
minutes). go up rapidly without decompression time. This is
unreliable, and may cause brain / joint damage. The third way is
Carbon Monoxide poisoning - fill your tank with it, and stay away
from other divers. You will fall asleep fairly quickly. See CO in
poisons section. The final way is oxygen poisoning - however, this
means that you have to go very deep with an oxygen-rich mix, and
there are problems associated with that. The advantage of these
methods is that insurance companies / relatives will assume that
it was an accident ('misadventure'), with the possible exception
of the CO poisoning.
* The source of this follows: (from the net)
"Rising 30m without exhaling will usually result in an over
pressured lung, possible subcuteaneous emphazema, collapsed lung,
death usually from drowning in your own blood. Rather painful and
usually curable if you are rescued, but fair chance of dying if you
aren't. Building up a high residual nitrogen time (say 30m for 30
min) then coming up without decompressing will get you bent fairly
nicely. You don't feel much, but your joints tend to start
stiffening up after half an hour. Death is very uncertain, coming
from a stroke. Brain damage, joint damage etc are most likely.
Pobably can be recued but some damage certain. Oxygen poisoning,
going down 50+m until the partial pressure of the oxygen reaches a
toxic level. Difficult to accomplish, very painful to get down that
deep, cold pressure etc, possibility of nitrogen narcosis and
forgetting what you are doing. Probably get bent, good chance of
rescue. CO poisoning, mix a healthy batch of carbon monoxide in
your tank as you dive, you tend to go to sleep under water, when
combined with the above methods you have a pretty good winner,
don't forget to forget your BCD."
SUCKING YOUR BRAINS OUT (silly)
* Time: Minutes
* Available: You'd need a Puma (TM) robot, & some other bits
* Certainty: certain, given proper programming
* Notes: You would need an industrial robot to do this properly.
Give it a saw attachment, a sucking tube attachment, and program
it. Make a head restraint. When you are fixed securely into the
restraint, start the robot's program. It will drill a hole in your
head, and stick the tube into the hole. Program it to wiggle the
tube back and forth so that it doesn't miss anything. This might
work better if you put a stream of water into the hole as well, so
that the sucking attachment doesn't just suck air all the time.
Debugging the program could be amusing.
MICROWAVES
* Time: ?
* Available: Source of strong microwave emissions
* Certainty: ?
* Notes: Cooking yourself. Point is to raise your core body
temperature to fatal levels.
* Calle: Does anyone have any information on this? All that I know
is that standing in front of a Swedish coast surveillance radar
(which happens to use exactly the same wavelength as your average
microwave oven) is a Bad Thing.
DEHYDRATION
* Time: a week or so?
* Available: you need to be able to stop medical help.
* Certainty: certain if your will-power stands up to it.
* Notes: Don't eat or drink. Remember that food contains a high
proportion of water. Avoiding medical help can be difficult. See
'starving to death'.
SKYDIVING 'ACCIDENT'
* Time: pretty damn quick.
* Available: need to join a skydiving club. Takes much time and
money.
* Certainty: Fairly certain. People have fallen from extreme heights
and survived. The resulting injuries are not fun.
* Notes: Join a skydiving club, continue to practise it for a while
to clear off all suspicions and then once pack your parachute in a
real mess (preferably knotted up, but not too clearly) and then
jump. The para will not open and you will reach a terminal
velocity of 220 km/h (160 mph/120 kn). Death is instant in the
impact with the Planet Earth.
* This has the advantages of being 'accidental', and your family/
friends do not have the additional pain and guilt associated with
suicides.
* Calle: In addition to the above, you need to remove or disable
your reserve parachute (which is not easy, I'm told). There are
better "accidental" methods than this.
* A correspondent who is a skydiver dislikes this entry, since if
people use it it will give skydiving an undeservedly bad
reputation.
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS; MODERN VERSION (silly)
* Time: variable
* Available: a heck of a lot of razor-wire.. maybe a high-voltage
supply
* Certainty: not very good
* Notes: This is a modern variant of the Arabic 'Death of a thousand
cuts'. Basically, jump onto a stack of unravelled razor wire, and
roll around till you die.. it may help to connect a high- voltage,
low current power supply to the wire, so that you have spasms,
which should keep you getting cut even when you are unconscious.
Also, you should make sure that you can't roll off the wire.
CRUSHING
* Time: seconds to minutes, depends on car press
* Available: a car press.. any good junkyard
* Certainty: certain as long as you can't escape
* Notes: This is an elegantly simple one.. get into a car, in a car
press, and shortly afterwards be squashed to death as your body is
converted into a red pulp. It may be tricky getting the press to
trigger, but if you hide in the car someone may come along and
activate it. There are other ways of getting crushed, this just
happens to be the most effective I can think up on the spur of the
moment. Getting yourself run over by a fully loaded articulated
lorry is quite good. You should remember that people quite often
survive the actual crushing; they die when the weight is taken OFF
them.
WORLD WAR THREE
* Time: moments if you are near a militarilly significant site
* Available: happen to be one of the 'key-holders'? president maybe?
* Certainty: pretty certain
* Notes: All you have to do is trigger world war three. Fire an ICBM
or three at the Chinese and the Russians... This method has the
advantage that you take everyone else with you! Trouble is, the
number of people with the requisite access is minimal, and I sort
of doubt that any readers of ASH can do this.
* Calle: Lots harder since the collapse of the Soviet Union...
Silly.
HEATSTROKE
* Time: 4 hours or more
* Available: Very hot day; no disturbance from neighbours etc
* Certainty: depends on the weather
* Notes: Basically, the point is to give yourself extreme
heatstroke. You should pass out after a few hours. Use some
aluminium foil to direct the sun's heat onto you, to speed up the
process a bit. Try to reduce the chance of being interuppted, take
off the phone etc. Obviously, start in the morning! Helps if the
outside temperature is >100F.
ACID BATH
* Time: depends on acid
* Available: a lot of a very strong acid
* Certainty: fairly good
* Notes: [from alt.suicide.holiday]
"summer heat got you down? Try the new and improved neighbourhood
acid bath. Most metal working plants and some auto-repair shops
will have a nice soothing acid bath. This, of course, is for those
of you who enjoy extreme pain and don't want to make a mess for
others to clean up. If you don't leave a note chances are they will
never know what happened, aside from the shop / plant being broken
into."
FAKE CAR BOMB
* Time: milliseconds
* Available: explosive
* Certainty: fairly good if enough explosive
* Notes: This is a modification of the basic use-explosives method.
What you do, is make a homemade car bomb, and drive off happily
after chatting with your neighbour about how well your life is
going, apart from a few minor death-threats from an Iraqi
death-squad.. To confuse the authorities even more, have a note in
your pocket listing the telephone numbers of all the eastern
foreign embassies in your pocket, together with a little line of
random "code numbers" next to each.., and a random but large
amount of cash listed against each code number. :-) Oh yes, and a
heavily annotated copy of Jane's Defence Weekly - Xhosa edition.
JUMPING OFF BRIDGES (slice and dice with piano wire)
* Time: 9.87 ms-2; 4 to 10 meters; calculate it yourself!
* Available: Rope, pianowire and a high bridge.
* Certainty: Fairly certain
* Notes: Never been tried. Can also be used with a fairly high
building, but then the art-motive will disappear.
* Cut the rope and wire in various lengths. Each length must not be
longer than the height of the bridge. Tie one end of the ropes and
wires to the bridge Tie the other part of the ropes to different
bodyparts like thigh, calves, torso etc. Then tie the pianowires
around your joints. (Don't forget your genitals..) When you jump
various parts of you body are whipped away by the pianowire
nooses, and your bits are held up by the ropes swaying in the
breeze. If you to this right you should end up with just your
torso hanging by it's neck above the sea, highway, ground. Do it
with friends, and call it art.
BEING EATEN ALIVE
* Time: depends, but probably a couple of minutes
* Available: zoo, or live in Africa/wherever
* Certainty: not brilliant.. what if they're not hungry and don't
finish?
* Notes: basically, find one or more hungry carnivores... tigers are
nice. Also, sharks, lions, any of the big cats..
BEING BURNED UP IN UNPROTECTED RE-ENTRY (silly)
* Time: probably a few minutes
* Available: if you happen to be able to get into orbit
* Certainty: about as certain as you can get!
* Notes: Just go for a spacewalk in a low earth orbit, and
decelerate enough to enter the atmosphere. You'll get a great
view...
ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME (AIDS)
* Time: Incubation period 1 to 10 years, death within 2 years of
diagnosis of AIDS, Can have HIV for years/decades
* Dosage: Just one intimate contact with an Infected person of any
gender
* Available: Available to all for free
* Certainty: 99.9% certainty AFTER infected
* Notes: [2]: This is not painfree. This method may cost you alot of
money if you allow others to get you medical attention. It may a
little difficult to get infected as people who know they have it
may not comply with your request. Could be great fun attempting to
get infected depending upon your attitude (remember -any gender -
you don't have to limit yourself - you're going to die, you might
as well try it ;). Should be quite devasting to your family &
close friends. You also get the satisfaction of leaving behind a
virtual unrecognizable-as-you body ! This also gives you the prime
opportunity to point your finger at your dentist and say he did it
for all the times you have suffered in their chair. Happy dying !
* Calle: May not be so certain any more. Ten years may well be long
enough for someone to develop a cure. Silly, IMHO.
AUTO-DECAPITATION BY CAR (added by Calle)
* Time: Real quick
* Available: You need access to a car and a rope
* Certainty: I wouldn't trust it
* Notes: Comes from alt.suicide.holiday. Basic idea is to tie one
end of the rope around your neck, tie the other end to a real
solid object, get into the car and accelerate away as fast as the
car can manage. When you reach the end of the rope, your head gets
torn off. Be sure to use enough rope and fasten your seat belt.
* A posting to a.s.h. in July 1993 says that someone in Washinton
State, USA actually used this method to commit suicide, so it
can't be that bad. The posting said that 25 feet of rope were used
(about 7.5 meters), which does sound a bit short. Perhaps he had a
real awesome car.
DEATH BY PAINTING YOUR BODY (very silly, and wrong)
* Dosage : Less than 1 can of paint depending on your body type
* Time : ? Probably less than 8 hours
* Availability : Very available ! You have a choice of greasepaint
or House paint. You need a type of paint that will not allow your
pores to breath in order to be successful at this. You also have a
smashing selection of colors you can choose to die in ! Nile Green
? Blood Red ? Basic Black ? Or any combo you desire.. If you
couldn't decide before what to wear to die in, this method will
cause you considerable angst.
* Certainty : This is a sure method, provided you have a paint that
will block your pores from breathing. Don't forget the bottom of
your feet. You must paint every last bit of available skin. If
your pores can breathe, you won't die.
* Notes : I read this in some theater journal 5 or so years ago,
saying when you you do full body makeup, you must insure that
parts of the body are left naked to breathe or the actor will die.
Usually for full body makeup, they leave the bottoms of feet, and
some patterns on the body, like lines so the actor doesn't
suffocate.
* Calle: This is an *extremely* silly one. It was in the "not yet
edited" portion of Mike's file, and I think it is quite straight
from an a.s.h. posting. This method does not work. As you can
check in most any book on human anatomy, the skin does not
breathe. The only places in your body which absorbs oxygen are the
lungs and the corneas, and the corneas only feed themselves. You
might get ill or even die if you use poisonous paint, though.
_________________________________________________________________
Part 4 - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
The only thing I can remember that has been asked for multiple
times, besides the File itself, are the lyrics for "Suicide Is
Painless" (the theme from M*A*S*H). Here it is:
"Suicide is Painless"
Words by Mike Altman
Music by Johnny Mandel
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see that
Chorus: Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
I try to find a way to make
All our little joys relate
Without that ever-present hate
But now I know that it's too late, and
(chorus)
The game of life is hard to play
I'm going to lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
And this is all I have to say, that
(chorus)
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I'm beat
And to another give a seat
For that's the only painless feat, cause
(chorus)
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger - watch it grin
(chorus)
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be?
And I replied, "Oh why ask me?", cause
(chorus)
And you can do the same thing if you please.
_________________________________________________________________
Part 5 - Notes by Calle
At the end of Mike's file there were an entry for Nitrous Oxide. I
have removed it, as there already is one. There were also a mail were
someone recommended military nerve toxins. They might not be as
certain as the originator thought, as current military thinking is
that one griveously wounded man is worth many dead ones in decreasing
the enemy's fighting capacity. That means that modern nerve gasses
well might leave you paralyzed for life, but still living. Anyway, if
you can get military stuff, why not use a rifle or a few kilos of
explosive?
Mike's sig were also at the bottom of the File. It follows here, for
historic reasons:
[ .sig removed by Mike's request ]
Unfortunately, the mail address doesn't work any more.
Well, that's all. Comments are very welcome.
_________________________________________________________________
Calle Dybedahl,Torpareg. 94, S-583 31 Linkoeping,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se
"I think quotes are very dangerous things." -KaTe Bush
And, for completeness, my data:
Ingvar Mattsson
Björnkärrsgatan 7 A:12
S-582 51 LINKÖPING
SWEDEN