User:Leucosticte/Frequently Asked Questions

This section of the wiki covers questions that are frequently asked, or that are likely to get frequently asked in the future.

Answer #1
This wiki fills a gap, because it provides evidence-based and cross-checked information about methods for a self-chosen death that have high success rates (provided these details are fully followed and taken into consideration).

Some of the books which are well known and available in the market today, were found to provide some accurately examined and proven pieces of information, while other details and suggestions mentioned in their books have been proven to be either inaccurate or insufficient - this according to people who used those instructions, or according to other sources of information (e.g. the Helium method in Dr. Nitschke's book The Peaceful Pill Handbook, or the so-called "Orphenadrine Cocktail" in Dr. Admiraal's book Guide to a Humane Self-Chosen Death).

In addition to these problems, broadly disseminated myths and misinformation have prompted us to create a repository of "comprehensive" information for those who are in need of self-deliverance due to their debilitating illnesses.

Some of the information that appears here, for obvious reasons, is not the result of "laboratory tests" as needed in any scientific research. Instead, our conclusions are based on toxicity reports, case reports of suicide attempts, reports of successful suicides and biochemistry-based evaluations. We made our best attempts to combine the valuable information gleaned from well-authorised euthanasia books written by doctors and biochemists.

One of our main goals was to have our information be as scientific and reliable as possible given the circumstances. In places where some case studies seem to refute the claims of some euthanasia books, we added notes to illuminate the readers.

Answer #2
Communities like ASH and ASM provide great help for depressed and suicidal people, allowing members to talk openly about their issues. Unfortunately, these communities don't work as well when it comes to providing technical information and facts. One of the authors of this wiki searched for an "insurance" method because of physical illness, and faced the unfortunate state of available information:
 * There is no short, concise, up-to-date document that gives an overview of "good" methods. In this context, "good" is taken to mean: peaceful, accessible, reliable, harmless for other people, etc. Also, most people are not interested in a "methods encyclopedia", like the infamous ASH methods file.
 * Some information is outright erroneous, and there is no way for a "normal" person to tell right and wrong information apart, because rarely if ever any sources are mentioned.
 * Knowledge of the existence of excellent books such as The Peaceful Pill Handbook could have saved lot of time, but unfortunately, those books stay largely unknown.
 * Much of the information available in ASH and ASM is scattered over many posts, therefore making it harder to get a good overview of the information available for a particular suicide method (and so one may likely become somewhat confused). Also, there is a searchable message archive available for both newsgroups at Google Groups, but the search function of the archives has been somewhat broken since at least 2009, causing the archives to not yield every relevant post anymore during a search.

Would it not be better if suicidal people were deprived of this information, hence they might seek help and live?
Answer by Aficoman:
 * Most evidence shows that the opposite is more plausible. That is, people who consider suicide due to a long-lasting incurable illness or something similar, would tend to take their time and keep on living if they knew that their drug cocktail is just waiting there near their bed; then, if things get too bad and unbearable, they can always resort to their method.
 * Evidently, most people who are ill or in any intolerable condition (such as a financial crisis that is on the verge of exploding, therefore putting people at risk of homelessness and the like), would tend to commit suicide sooner because they are afraid of not having this option available when things do get worse.

Why a 'do-it-yourself' approach when there are professional VE organisations like Dignitas?
Answer by Dilbert28:

While passing VE laws to allow the existence of right-to-die organisations like Dignitas worldwide is important, this is not always the right solution. The reasons are as follows:
 * This creates just another bureaucracy. We already face bureaucrats when we inherit money or pay taxes; do we really need another bureaucracy to decide about "life and death"? VE organizations will unavoidably demand a huge amount of paperwork: this may be required by law, but also because they wish to protect themselves against legal claims.
 * Such organizations put a suffering person in a position where (s)he has to legally prove own suffering with lots of documents. This raises the question: "If I know that I am indeed suffering, why do I have to prove it to some bureaucrats? I know it, and that should be enough".

Answer by Aficoman:
 * Many of those aforementioned organisations claim to help a suffering person to die, without clearly and decisively stating what their criteria and/or threshold conditions are for application to assisted suicide. This leaves very wide margins, thereby allowing the organisation to easily decline one's request, after a long and agonising process. At the end of the day, their definitions of what makes a legitimate or competent candidate are so vaguely defined, yet so strictly measured ("Are you going to die from your affliction in the future? If yes, when are you expected to die? How much are you *really* suffering? How old are you?"), that it leaves the majority of us with no plausible chance to be granted any help with dying.
 * Speaking out of my own personal experience: when I addressed one of these organisations (Dignitas), I was first told to pay a considerable amount of money just for my application request to be processed. After my application was refused, my money was never returned to me, even though I relentlessly asked for it. This from the only organisation that claims to help foreigners, i.e. people who are not from Switzerland (Dignitas is a Swiss organisation)!
 * Many suffering people, as a part of their physical and mental state, are in a financial crisis as well. As a result, they cannot possibly pay anything, let alone losing their last savings (if they do happen to have some left). Then, after having been left out on a limb by the right-to-die organisation that they approached, they are denied help by said organisation, after which they have no reasonable alternative or any money left.
 * Moreover, for a considerable amount of suicidal people, travelling to a foreign country for their assisted suicide is impossible due to physical reasons (illness or disability). Others, though physically capable of travelling to a foreign country, have a dying wish to die at home, preferably while surrounded by their loved ones. Therefore, both groups of suicidal people would prefer a 'do-it-yourself' method instead of having to approach a right-to-die organisation.

Is it not so that even for those with a physical illness, nearly all suicides are caused by a coexisting depression?
Answer by Dilbert28:

This is indeed often stated; see, for example, Kay Redfield Jamison.
 * 1. The problem with these data is that depression or another mental illness is often diagnosed after the fact: "the highest estimate of mental illness for subjects that had been diagnosed before suicide, was 22%. Afterward, the highest estimate was 90%.".
 * 2. To assess the share of rational suicides, we can look at data from countries that legally allow assisted suicide. Assisted suicide organisations in Switzerland have very conservative rules regarding the acceptance of patients: any patient must be evaluated by a licensed physician and, any psychiatric disorder requires additional psychiatric expertise (see the report of Dignitas on its own legal situation, for example). This practically rules out assistance to anyone that holds a treatable psychiatric illness (or treatable depression) as the main reason to end their own life. Nevertheless, statistics say that "about 20% of people who kill themselves in Switzerland do so with the help of an organisation that offers assisted suicide." . This means that at least 20% of suicides were not caused by a treatable psychiatric illness. In reality, of course, this number is higher, because some people from the rational suicide group decided against involving Dignitas or the Final Exit Network.
 * 3. The fact that there is a depression does not mean that the suicide cannot be rational: "chronically depressed, alcoholic, or schizophrenic persons may decide that it is better to be dead than to continue living as they are."

Questions about the newsgroups ASH and ASM
The newsgroups have their own FAQs, even though they may be slightly outdated at this point in time. The FAQ for ASH is available here, while the one for ASM is located here. Be sure to read those first, before you ask any questions about the newsgroups here: you may just find your answers in one of those FAQs.

Can I edit sections of the wiki without having to create an account?
Yes, you certainly can. However, your IP address will still be logged.

How does one communicate with other editors of the wiki?
There are several possibilities available, namely:


 * Leave a comment on an editor's discussion page (also known as a user talk page). This is not always possible, because some editors have chosen not to create their own discussion page.
 * Leave a comment on an article's discussion page (click here for an example). Again, this will not always be possible, because the discussion pages of many articles have not yet been created.
 * Go to the Community Portal and leave a comment in the section "Notes, ideas & suggestions."

Please note that there are certain posting rules that one has to adhere to whenever one edits an article or even leaves a comment for a fellow editor.

How does one format text in the wiki?
The so-called wiki syntax is not that difficult to master: go here to see what tags are used for formatting text, and how they are used.

How can I make templates, and where are the existing templates located?
All templates are grouped together here; that page also includes a very humble tutorial.