Some time ago I re-saw the film The Straight Story. This is the only David Lynch film without freaks and a G-rating (all ages), with Richard Farnsworth, Harry Dean Stanton and Sissy Spacek. Since Farnsworth, as Alvin Straight, needed two canes to walk and a gripper to pick things from the floor, I wanted to know whether it was the role Straight who needed the canes or the actor Farnsworth. Wikipedia: the film debuted in Cannes in 1999, but was shot in 1998 when Farnsworth had already metastasised prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. He lived on a farm near Lincoln, New Mexico. When he was partially paralysed and in hellish pain, he committed suicide, at 80, in 2000. He shot himself, he was not granted a humane death by euthanasia. That's forbidden in all USA states thanks to all backward, mentally retarded, religious republican morons. MAID, Medical Aid In Dying, is allowed in New Mexico since 2021. It is one of merely 13 states of all 50 where terminally ill people need to go for assisted suicide and a humane death. In 2026! Can you now understand why stupidity makes me furious?
We have all been born, and we all must die. I think that most of us hope for a peaceful death, like during sleep. But there are situations in which people see no future and they want to step out of life, preferably also in a peaceful way. Not a messy, bloody or painful exit. One problem is that death and certainly suicide are taboos, we don't want to be remembered of our steadily and inevitably approaching death, and we avoid to talk about suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
However, take a look at some figures. In 2025, the number of traffic deaths in the EU was 19,400. Everybody agrees that this must be reduced as much as possible. Also, in 2025, the number of (registered!) suicides in the EU was 47,346, almost 2.5 times the traffic deaths. Perhaps everybody also agrees that this must be reduced, but suicide is not a very hot item in newspapers and TV shows. Below I will go into detail, but this is my plea for a humane death for everybody who decides to end their life!
Every time I see an episode of MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) with Hawkeye and Hotlips, which I only do when the weather is bad with rain (which also happens in the Algarve, but not often :-) when I hear the tune, I am remembered of Johnny Mandel's song Suicide is painless:
The pains that are withheld from me
I realize and I can see
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
Well, suicide is often not painless. The only painless suicide I know of (apart from assisted suicide) is that of James Bond in the last Daniel Craig film No time to die, when he is contaminated, he must commit suicide, so he asks for rockets to destroy his place, and then he sees the rockets approaching knowing that he will be annihilated in a fraction of a second.
This is not a guide of suicide methods, for this you need to read The Peaceful Pill Handbook. But anyway, if you are seriously thinking about suicide, please talk to close friends or family members or call a suicide hotline. In the USA and Canada it is 988. In France 3114 (24/7) and in Spain 024 (24/7). In the Netherlands it is 113. In Portugal there are various services.
In my webpage about religion, I write that religious people always try to form political parties. This is a way to participate in governments and thereby to influence policies according to their religion and beliefs. Although other, non-religious parties know that this is stupid, they often have to accept this in order to form a coalition or government which has an absolute majority. This is the only way to get things done. You have to deal with compromises, and some but small sacrifices, here and there, are part of the deal. This is how it works in the Netherlands, but also in most other countries. Anyway, one religiously coloured compromise is a ban on euthanasia. I wrote that this is reserved for critically ill pets, and animals in general, but not for example for your mother with final-stage cancer, who's life has become unbearable and who begs for assisted suicide. Many people who are refused assisted suicide, for example by religious family members, see no other solution than to stop eating and drinking until they die. As I wrote, sarcastically, this is a very “humane” death.
In general, about voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, it is ridiculous that, in this respect backward politicians can block reasonable solutions. Often-used arguments are that religion forbids because life is “sacred,” it is ethically not “kosher,” people who ask for it are too young, or not mentally fit to take such a decision, physicians stick to their Hippocratic Oath because they don't like to be involved, or simply because many people are afraid of dying and death.
To stop eating and drinking is inhumane, but it is reasonably peaceful, and at least not bloody. Other ways are even worse and can be utterly dramatic for family members and others. Finding one's spouse hanging dead in the garage is traumatic. Imagine the shock of a train's engine-driver who sees someone on his track and he knows he cannot stop in time. Later comes the PTSS, even with psychological help. And how about the work of a fire-brigade in cleaning up the mess, with sometimes 10 meters of intestines along the train track?
Dutch NS (railways) started in october 2026 an action to reduce the annual number of train-track suicides. These were 200, and The Netherlands is one of the smallest EU countries! In Europe, there were 2,357 reported railway suicides in 2025.
People who have a bathroom with a gas water-heater can be “lucky,” because they can close the door and window, turn on the hot water, and sit back in a comfortable chair. The odourless gas CO (carbon monoxide) does the rest. One can breathe normally, there is no sense of suffocation. If you don't have a gas water-heater, you can light coal in a portable barbecue. Coal also produces CO. Unfortunately, even if family members are aware of psychical problems, and the idea of suicide has already come up, the actual act is often decided impulsively. Hence: it is always a shock.
In the Netherlands, in Switzerland and in an increasing number of other countries, assisted suicide is now accepted. I myself had a good life, in health, but health can be seen as a state in which no illness or disease has yet been detected or diagnosed. If something serious might happen to me, I do not want to be dependent on any physician who puts his own conscience above my own desire or necessity, as consciously decided by myself, to put an end to my own life.
Many rational people think the same: it is my decision and I don't want to be bothered by others, and certainly not by morons led by religion, politics or ethics. However, in assisted suicide, apart from physicians and legal guardians, there are always psychological “specialists” involved. Even when a person has officially declared to prefer assisted suicide in case of serious illness like dementia, once in a vegetative state these “specialists” can decide against the person's own free decision. The reasoning behind the refusal is always the same: the decision was taken in good health, but now with advanced dementia the person might be afraid of death, or perhaps changed opinion, or now clings to life. Even worse, a family member like a son can decide that his mother must vegetate behind the sansevierias in the window-sill. I have seen a documentary in which a son said that he was sooo happy that his mother “lived” two years more, but the only, true, reason was that this bloke was religious and afraid of death.
The legal systems in some countries are absolutely ridiculous, not to say ludicrous or absurd. Some countries forbid assisted suicide altogether, such that a lethal injection by a physician is not allowed and a reason for prosecution. Also, a physician who administers a drink (some lethal solution) to an unable person can be charged with murder. In such legal systems, someone, like a care giver, or a physician her/himself, can place a cup with the lethal solution in front of the patient, but the patient must drink the solution without any further help. There should be witnesses present to declare that the patient took and drank the solution. This is how sick a system can be when there are many forces united to make assisted suicide as difficult as possible. Mind you: all this is in cases when people, patients, are in a state in which they depend 100% on others. Other people are free to hang themselves, to jump in front of a rushing train, or to take some lethal substance. Even, there are countries where suicide is forbidden. One could laugh about this, if it weren't so sad.
My opinion is that any person at a certain age has the right to end life in a humane way, not messy. Historically, suicide is not seen as a human right. One can judge a society by how terminally ill pets are treated, by euthanasia, but there appears to be a giant gap between pets and humans, terminally ill or not. To many, common sense says that only people with psychical problems, desperate, who can no longer see a positive future, commit suicide. Nowadays there are telephone hotlines for first aid for people who think about suicide and realize that they need help (see Introduction). They can be brought into contact with a psychologist for therapy, if preferred. That's OK!
However, there are still many cases in which someone decides that life has been good or bad, it is better to end it, and then starts to think about suicide. And then there is no help concerning the actual “execution.” Everybody knows about dirty car exhaust fumes with the gas CO, about poison, hanging, trains or cutting one's arm veins in a warm bath. It often gets dirty or bloody. But it does not need to be!
In the Netherlands some people were prosecuted for selling the so-called “Middel X” or “substance X.” It is called Middel X because the government decided that its true name may not be divulgated, but everybody knowns that it is sodium azide. It is a highly toxic powder which is used in the chemical industry, but also in automobile airbags. Since 2015, at least 172 people died using Middel X. The largest group was over 70 years old. Please do not think that Middel X is the perfect substance for suicide, there are reports of not-so-clean deaths! See The Peaceful Pill Handbook Update.
The Swiss had already the perfect solution: 15 gr of Nembutal (sodio-pentobarbital). Nembutal is a powerful barbiturate, which is mainly used as an anti-depressant. If the dose is large enough, the depression, well, any problem, is solved forever! My proposal is that every person, at the age of 19, say, has the right to obtain 15 gr of Nembutal. No questions asked. Although, the only requirement is identification for the age etc, and perhaps a small questionnaire for knowing the reason, for statistical purposes. It is time to have serious discussions about the minimum age, problematic cases before that minimum age (for example physical or psychical problems), distribution points, suicide centers, cremations, and costs. Maybe a special insurance? But the most important discussion is about the right to die! About a humane, clean and not messy exit.
PS: Exit International US does not sell Nembutal, but there are online shops which sell it and also an antiemetic against vomiting. Exit Int also maintains a list of criminal sites: nembutal scams. There are also websites for other chemicals, but I would prefer Nembutal over azide, nitrite and cyanide.
I do not know how legal the purchase of such substances is. We do know some facts about the potencies of drugs from the USA opioid addiction crisis. For example, morphine is used for chronic pain relief, but not for general anesthesia. Assume, for the latter, that 0.05 - 0.2 mg/kg is needed, so for a 100 kg person 5 - 20 mg is required. Milligrams! To understand the opioid crisis, consider that oxycodone is up to twice as potent as morphine, and that fentanyl is 50 - 100 times more potent. These are legal prescription drugs. But now the “market” is flooded with illegal synthetic opioids, which are often mixed with other drugs. To mention only two examples: nitrazenes like cychlorphine is up to 40 times as potent as morphine, but other derivatives like etonitazine can be 1000 - 1500 times more potent as morphine. In the case of 1000, anesthesia of a 100 kg person would require only 5 - 20 µg. Micrograms! That is why consuming some unreliable mix from an unknown dealer can be a deadly roulette: if one does not die right away, one gets hooked after only one “consumption.” If you do not like to play roulette, rely on medical fentanyl. A high dose for general anesthesia is 20 to 50 µg/kg, in case of 100 kg this is up to 5 mg. Warning: this may cause fatal respiratory depression because fentanyl affects the respiratory control system in the brain. Most overdose deaths are caused by the stopping of breathing. See US 2024-25 fentanyl overdose statistics.
Philip Nitschke and Fiona Stewart (2006) The peaceful pill handbook. Exit International US.
See also the Sarco Pod which uses the gas nitrogen. As for CO (see above), normal respiration is not hindered - no suffocation!
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