Suicide Pills

[arnold]

Can I make suicide pills with sodium azide instead of KCN?

If I can:
1) what amount in one pill?
2) better to put it in gelatin capsule or to form a tablet with some glue?
3) Is it panless (less than KCN) to poison with NaN3?
4) better to swallow a pill in a whole or crush it with teeth before?
5) what is the best way to carry it?

[plutobound]

KCN LD50 (oral - rats) 5mg/kg
NaN3 LD50 (oral - rats) 27mg/kg

1) figure it out
2) gelatin capsule - glue will prevent absorption
3) No poison you ingest will be painless - think LOTS of pain
4) Not sure which will absorb faster, in stomach/intestine or under tongue. Why don't you try both ways an let us know the results.
5) Best way is probably in your mouth, that way if someone out to get you uses a taser, it will crush automatically and you don't risk getting captured.

If you're serious about this why not just step in front of a bus and get it over now?

EDIT: The toxicity numbers come from Sigma-Aldrich MSDSs for ACS reagent grade KCN (>96%) and Reagentplus grade NaN3 (99.5%).

[nbk2000]

Hydrogen Azide is a powerful vasodepressor, causing rapid unconciousness from lowering of blood pressure.

Combining that with Cyanides slower asphixiyation effect, would seem ideal.

The azide knocks you out, the cyanide finishes you off.

Combined with a powerful synthetic opiate, to further suppress breathing and prevent pain, you'd have a sure suicide pill, requiring three different means of treatment to keep you alive...unlikely. :)

Get a gelatin capsule, put a ball bearing in it to make it easier to swallow, pack the poisons in tightly to eliminate air bubbles, and seal the capsule with a light band of nailpolish around the capsule joint.

You'll very lilkely have a dry mouth from the knowledge that you're about to kill yourself, so swallowing it will be difficult if you don't have any water handy.

You should put a little salt pill in the container you'll be carrying your suicide pill in, so you can chew the salt pill first to get some spit in your mouth so you can swallow the pill.

You can buy pill carrying necklaces at the pharmacy, used for nitro pills for heart patients. Only a few bucks, and waterproof. :)

RTPB "Plan for failure":

You'll need a backup in case you are captured or wounded before you can swallow your primary pill.

If you put both of the backup pills in a short length of polyethylene tubing (soda straw), with flame-sealed ends, you can tie it to a length of fishing line with a bead on the end, and stick it up your ass prior to your 'mission'.

If you get away, great. If not, you can still kill yourself in the jail cell after the strip search.

[hatal]

NBK2000: Good and well detailed idea.But the end is a bit weird: "Stick it up your ass" etc. Making a removable, fake tooth with the pill in it would be less bizzare. There is no dignity in killing yourself with something magically coming out of the ass (but on the contrary, its very practical, I must add).As for me: It would leave a funny taste in my mouth :D

[nbk2000]

While I'm all in favor of the Poison Gas Tooth :D, sticking things up your ass (or pussy, if female) to avoid detection of the item in question, is as old as man, and far more plausible.

It's most common amongst prisoners and spies. (http://www.donrearic.com/plandevasion.html)

Considering the likely scenario of suiciding to avoid capture after committing a crime, it seems essential to have backup in case of live capture, such as a TASER or 'Moscow Theater' knockout.

This way, even after you've got and strip-searched, unless they've given you 'the wave', you'll still have the means to kill yourself.

You have to assume they'll have you under a suicide watch in a cell with CCTV, so you'll have to be able to pull it out and gulp it down before they can stop you.

Reason for the bead and string is so it doesn't get 'lost' in there. :eek: Last thing you want is to have to digging around for it. :p

An interesting idea would be to coat the capsule with a water-activated foam, or one of those super-sponge thingies that swell up many times larger than their dry state. This would prevent them from sticking fingers down your throat to make you puke it up, as the sponge would swell up larger than your stomach sphincter, blocking it, thus making it impossible for you to vomit up the poison.

:p piggies!

[arnold]

How long can I store such suicide pills? I know sodium azide is very stable but KCN only if dry, is it?

No poison you ingest will be painless - think LOTS of pain I doubt if you're right. I read "The practical guide to suicide" where suicide with KCN poisonig and they claim that swallowing KCN is painless , it makes you unconcious after about 40sec, similar to CO poisoning. I believe NaN3 is similar.

Other poisons like scopolamine is also painless I heard. Maybe glycol etc. too

[plutobound]

How long can I store such suicide pills? I know sodium azide is very stable but KCN only if dry, is it?

I doubt if you're right. I read "The practical guide to suicide" where suicide with KCN poisonig and they claim that swallowing KCN is painless , it makes you unconcious after about 40sec, similar to CO poisoning. I believe NaN3 is similar.

Other poisons like scopolamine is also painless I heard. Maybe glycol etc. too

You're right, I over-generalized. Any of the strong narcotic/sedatives would be painless. Azide is not painless in that it causes a massive migrain headache until you pass out (this one I know from experience). I doubt KCN or NaCN would be painless. There was a kid in my lab at college who died from acute HCN poisioning and it was quite painful with seizures, etc (although fast - < 1minute).

[nbk2000]

It doesn't matter if it's painful, as long as it is quick.

If it feels like liquid fire melting your brain, and you'll dead in under 60 seconds, than be man enough to take it. After all, it's not like you're going to be alive to remember it, eh? :p

[anonymous411]

Wash down an opiate and some sort of nitrate with a good stiff vodka; your blood pressure goes and you won't feel a thing.

Personally, I think the ideal way to go would be to bite your own veins open and bleed to death all over the fucking place in your cell. Makes quite a statement, no?

[javainmycoffee]

What if you used an slow acting poison?

This way there wouldn't be anything to find during a search. Then if "mission failed" you die, if "mission success" you can give yourself the antidote.

This would put a time limit on the "mission"; but you could put it in an extra thick capsule or use an extremely slow acting poison (I don't know of any).

[Killian]

Or you can embed an explosive device in your sternum.

Er, minus the sarcastic 'tone'; I'm simply trying to say you'll find a way to die if you have enough desire to do so. All the chemical/poisons are redundant in my eyes. There's ample opportunity of suicide in any given situation in any given surrounding. No one way would be ideal for the 'job'.

What's the point of discussion without having specific details of the theoretical environment and circumstances?

[stephenb25]

Well say you have been caught be the enemy and you are in a room with rubber walls with cameras watching you 24/7 and nothing else in the room apart from the door and maybe a mattress. You may not have very much to use to commit suicide in that circumstance. You need a way that you can use that will guarantee that it will do the job. You don't want to be having to look for ways, you want to have a pre-organised way to make sure that you can reliably end your life.

I think the idea of a small concealed poison capsule which you can quickly pull out and take to give them no chance to stop you.
Maybe it could be concealed under a flap of skin which was made up to look normal. You just use your nail to open it and pull out the tablet and quickly swallow it.

[teshilo]

In WW2 agents of OSS and SOE had in your pockets not only cyanide L-pills.. Also used pill called "bioshock"as mean for escape After eating pill agent looked as dead ,not breath, not pulse Time of action various from 2 to 4 hours.I dont know about substances used in pill May be chloral+morfine?

[Charles Owlen Picket]

What's the point of discussion without having specific details of the theoretical environment and circumstances?

THAT is an intelligent and salient point!

Kiester-stashing a straw or balloon is no big deal. It's not like you're baking a cake of some shit.....:-) However some states allow a doctor or nurse to get in there prior to correctional (or detention) remand; others don't. Looping a sock around an object and hanging yourself while just sitting down is easy and available....Shit, if you are really about doing yourself and are in a closed or isolated environment, it's going to happen.

Now if you are NOT in an environment that is "law enforcement standard", you may not be ABLE to grab your butt stash or hang yourself, etc. If the purpose is to fucking die then forget the "painless" issue and think finality & efficiency.

[joffe]

Yes, OSS, SOE, etc. were issued cyanide L-pills.

But (according to a former SOE operator I knew), operators were reluctant to take the pills - the reason being that cyanide poisoning is such an agonizing way to go. Death may take up to 15 minutes. (Read about Himmler's suicide by cyanide). This is why CIA and other agnecies started looking into more painless ways to go.

Saxitoxin showed great promise and CIA suicide pills supposedly contain this toxin. I know the SOE operators were issued two sets of pills; the L-pill and benzedrine pills. Never heard about a WW2 pill that causes symptoms like you describe though.

They had an interesting manual, mainly meant to be distributed to enemy soldiers; how to feign illness. Full of simple information, from eating cordite (that really makes you look ill), to how to fake back injuries. They might have taken a page or two from this manual.

[arnold]

So IT IS a painful way?! I was thinkicng that the adony take place just when you're uncouncious

Acoording to painless poisons I found that scopolamine is one of them and was used by guerillas.

Tell how long can I store sucg capsules (KCN/NaN3/ KCN+NaN3) without the risk of deterioration?

And is it enough to make the capsule with NaN3 alone if only available?

[joffe]

Yes. According my sources. It is extremely painful. Here's a source. Probably biased but worth reading nonetheless.
http://www.idiom.com/~drjohn/cyanide.html

Scopolamine might indeed be a painless way to go, but I understand it's not a fast-acting poison. Often taking more than 30 minutes before any symptoms of poisoning will occur. Off course, if you increased the dose... But probably not your first choice if you're in a hurry and worried about "They" torturing you before you die.

KCN ampules used by German saboteurs during WW1 were analyzed in Norway in the mid-eighties, they were still lethal. German NaCN ampules from WW2 washed ashore on a Norwegian beach a few months ago - still very lethal.

I don't understand your last question - but English is not my first or even my second language so I have to pass on that one.

[arnold]

I asked if I have access only to sodium azide is it possible to make a suicide pill out of it alone instead of kcn or kcn mixed with NaN3?

I suppose the kcn to be stabe must be completly dry and the capsule water resistant

Maybe you know if if death by kcn injection is also so painful?

Know how it looks such a death by kcn or sodium azide poisoning? I'm very coriuos :)

I have read in :"a practical guide to suicide" on www.satanservice.org that only death by cyanide gas poisoning i is painfull. They claim that swallowing a solution wth 1,5g of kcn makes you uncouncious during 40 sec with no pain. I really doubt it.

[arnold]

nobody knows?

P.s. Sorry for my grammar, my english is far from perfect as now :(

[nbk2000]

Bumping a thread just because you didn't get a response quick enough for your tastes is a quick way to the back exit that leads to the HED pit (AKA Banned). :mad:

[ciguy007]

I've helped treat a couple of cyanide exposures - one a genius who mixed battery acid with chromium cyanide in a paint & body shop (should have gotten a Darwin award); the other who took cyanide to commit suicide after being convicted of sodomizing patients at a neuropsychiatric facility. Neither of them described pain. It was just "lights out" although they had the typical effects of cyanide - hyperventilation, gasping respirations, agonal breathing, cardiac arrest, loss of bowel and bladder function, yadda, yadda. The point was that they were unconscious during all of that.

If you check the book "final exit" there is an interesting chapter on using cyanide - not using too much because it makes your throat burn; slamming it down and quickly rinsing the glass so nobody accidentally gets into it, quickly lying down and pulling a plastic bag over your head. In my professional opinion, you'd be unconscious in less than a minute and dead as a mackerel in minutes.

[ciguy007]

We had what for me was a really uncomfortable session with some ethicists from the Oregon school of medicine the year after the assisted suicide initiative was passed in Oregon. We were asked as toxicologists, what would be the best agent(s), how they would be packaged and administered, what labeling should be used, and so on. We pretty much all tried to shy away, but the ethicists kept hammering away - "come on - you guys (and girls) are the experts - if you don't help, we might come up with something that would be painful, or even worse, ineffective." Kept me up at nights for a while. There were some really eye-opening combinations tossed around. Bottom line kept coming back to the compounds used in Holland - say 10 grams of secobarbital or pentobarbital in an ethanol-containing base (to dissolve the drugs and partially mask the taste) plus some flavoring ingredients; although there were some really creative (and lethal as hell) combinations tossed around.

[Alexires]

Hey ciguy007, what's with the double post? There is this little thing called the edit button that I suggest you use if you think of something after you have posted (only available for a limited time).

Double posting like that is bad joo joo. Don't do it.

[Bugger]

That anthrax scientist from Ft. Detrick, Maryland,who committed suicide the other day when about to be arrested and charged by the FBI over the anthrax letter attacks in 2001, was stated in one news item to have used an overdose of Tylenol with codeine.

[Telkor]

The japanese actually use a new method:

Hydrogen sulfide. More toxic than HCN, it knocks you out after a single breath at high concentration.

A capsule with metal sulfide should work well.

[joffe]

The key word here is "high concentration". If you don't sniff a high enough concentration of hydrogen sulfide, you may suffer an array of unpleasant symptoms like bronchial or lung hemorrhage, other side effects may be bronchitis and it may cause accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which may be immediate or delayed for up to 72 hours. Sounds a bit like phosgene symptoms to me.

[Telkor]

The key word here is "high concentration". If you don't sniff a high enough concentration of hydrogen sulfide, you may suffer an array of unpleasant symptoms like bronchial or lung hemorrhage, other side effects may be bronchitis and it may cause accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which may be immediate or delayed for up to 72 hours. Sounds a bit like phosgene symptoms to me.

That's true. But, as one gram of calcium sulfide will release 300 millilitres of H2S rapidly when ingested, it should work well. At normal lung volume and ingestion of one gram, it's enough when one percent of the gas passes through the esophagus into the lungs (some H2S might pass through the stomach, too).

[joffe]

You have a point, of course, and I believe this is probably a good "recreational" method of suicide. For some serious suiciding, like in a spec ops (don't get caught alive) context, I feel it's a field expedient way to go and there are too many variables here, especially when the result may be the vegetable ward at you local hospital.

Well, putting a gun under your chin and pulling the trigger is usually considered a sure way to go. I know of someone who did that with a German 7.92 mm Mauser 98K. That's one hot round, the way. And he failed. He shot off his lower jaw, a big part of his upper jaw, his nose, one eye and part of the skull. (When he got out of hospital, he could have scared away Freddie Kruger). But he survived.

[Telkor]

That's a problem. In such a situation, neither poison nor guns can assure death.

For example, a member of the Valkyrie plot, Ludwig Beck, tried to kill himself with a handgun. After two headshots, he was still alive :eek:

That's why soldiers often used explosives. Really gross, but absolutely lethal. A standard hand grenade will kill everbody in a radius of 10 meters.

[joffe]

A standard (modern) hand grenade killing everyone within a radius of ten meters is somewhat optimistic, but you'll probably hit everyone within that radius. You could of course try the Japanese version and clutch the grenade to your chest.

I remember one sad case I served with during my first stint in the military. He was desperately trying to get a discharge (which was very difficult to get) and didn't see any other solution than to kill himself. He took a 9 mm pistol, pointed it at his temple (or at least what he thought was his temple) and pulled the trigger - he shot both eyes out and survived. He got a medical discharge.

Talking about explosives and suicide - an SOE operator I knew told me how VIPs, who under no circumstances could fall into enemy hands, were evacuated in his area. Det cord was tied around his neck and attached to a British No.6 pressure release igniter, while he hid in some secret compartment. If the Nazis found him, he just had to release the igniter.

[Telkor]

A standard (modern) hand grenade killing everyone within a radius of ten meters is somewhat optimistic, but you'll probably hit everyone within that radius.

Well, the German DM51 is said to destroy anything in this radius, which is quite realistic, as in contains 64 gram of PETN and 6500 steel pellets.
That's up to twenty hits within this radius.


Det cord was tied around his neck and attached to a British No.6 pressure release igniter

Urgh, sounds nasty, very effective, though.

[joffe]

Well, the German DM51 is said to destroy anything in this radius, which is quite realistic, as in contains 64 gram of PETN and 6500 steel pellets.
That's up to twenty hits within this radius.

We're digressing from the thread, but. Still don't agree with you. I don't doubt that the casualty radius for the grenade is ten meters, 6500 steel pellets is an awful lot. But a casualty is not necessarily the same as a dead soldier, it also includes wounded ones, from grivously wounded to slightly wounded (even missing in action, but that hardly applies here).

Just to get us back on track. Some French field ration included some ominous looking tablets marked "boisson", don't know about how it is these days. Mercenaries in Africa in the sixties and seventies where sometimes issued these rations and kept the tablets for a rainy day. So when some of them were captured by the local rebels or whatever they took the pills. But the joke was on them when they discovered that the pills were water purificiation tablets and not poison.

[Gulliver]

Many non-prescription, over-the-counter drugs are quite lethal.
In my son's subdivision, someone committed suicide in one of the partially completed homes by simply downing a whole bottle of Benadryl.

[James]

I suppose if one had the infrastructure and demand one could make multi-layer suicide tab. an outer layer of fentanyl with a core containing azide and cyanide to plagarize NBK. I don't suppose there are enzymes or something that would speed absorbtion. Oh, and a very outer coating of an anti-emitic. There are tidbits in other threads near here that could be incorporated too.

[Secong Nature]

Poisoning with an explosive could work, imagine a glass vial of nitroglycerin put just underneath the skin. When needed just hit yourself in the right place, breaking the vial and putting 20mLs of NG straight into your bloodstream, AFAIK thats unsurvivable.

[Cobalt.45]

Fentanyl or one of its analogues (wiki says sufentanil is 5-10 times more potent or carfentanil- said to be >120 times the potency of fentanyl or 10,000 times that of morphine!) would be a good choice due to its minuscule lethal dosage. Carfentanil is used in veterinary medicine as a large animal tranquilizer so might actually be obtainable.

In pure form, it would be infinitely more concealable than gram-quantity poisons, IMHO.

Oddly, I posted this earlier but it (the earlier post) is gone.

[joffe]

Fentanyl is a very interesting substance. The Russians used a fentanyl derivative to sedate the terrorists who had occupied a theater in Moscow a few years back (That could have been a great anti-terrorist operation, but of course the Russians screwed it up by not giving the hostages sufficinet first-aid immediately afterwards). So it's a very rapid-acting poison. It's also (according to a usually reliable source I use) very hard to detect in a post-mortem. According to my usually reliable source, you have literally seconds to administer an antidote if you're unlucky enough to be poisoned by carfentanil. A common routine when using carfentanil darts to tranquilize animals is having one with an antidote injector ready while the other prepares the dart. But it's also (at least in the EU countries) a strictly controlled substance. But I must say it sounds like a great poison for suicide/assassination.

[Cobalt.45]

The Russians used a fentanyl derivative to sedate the terrorists who had occupied a theater in Moscow a few years back (That could have been a great anti-terrorist operation, but of course the Russians screwed it up by not giving the hostages sufficient first-aid immediately afterwards).
I recall that same operation and you're right- it could've been a most excellent op had the Reds been properly prepared to resuscitate the hostages.

I read that the op was so hush-hush (no surprise there!) that the medicos didn't have sufficient, well, anything to deal w/such numbers and were told only to be ready to administer narcotic antagonists when/if needed.

There is still speculation as to what the exact substance was, but it seems to be unanimous that it was a fentanyl derivative. Even concerning fentanyl, in a jail-house interview some years ago of the biggest US (and world, likely) maker of illicit fentanyl said he almost did himself in while sampling his wares in his lab out West. He said it was immediately "lights out"- and this dude knew how to dose himself, having been severely addicted to it.

Wiki:rolleyes: sited some of the analogues having such short half-lives as to be a virtual on-off switch.
I also take this to mean (as stated by joffe, above) that it may well be hard to detect. Not an issue w/suicide usually, but if one were doing themselves in and wanted an insurance policy to shell out...

[FreeLancer]

I've noticed some of you mentioned fentanyl. But you weren't really specific. fentanyl has to be the way to go (it's sold on the street as syntetic heroin) because it is so fast acting that there are cases of addicts who didn't have
time to remove the needle from their arms before dying,
in one case, the victim was discovered by the police
standing next to his truck, leaning in the door. He had
been dead for several hours. One milligram is more
than enough to cause rapid death when given intravelously.

[Cobalt.45]

I've noticed some of you mentioned fentanyl. But you weren't really specific. fentanyl has to be the way to go...How specific does one have to be?:confused: Fentanyl and its analogs were sited along w/their relative strengths as well as the site where more info is available.

Only thing lacking was your oh-so-insightful, "One milligram is more than enough to cause rapid death when given intravelously [sic]." :p

Fentanyl doesn't have "to be the way to go...". It is but one of many of ways to go.

BTW- fentanyl is rarely seen on the streets, and if it is it isn't sold as "syntetic [sic] heroin". It's sold as heroin, period. Heroin users do not like fentanyl as a first choice.

[FreeLancer]

I agree that there are more ways to go. But if you want it to be really quick this is the way to go (or cyanide directly into the hart... but that would be painful and the kill time would still be around 10 secs)

[PYRO500]

To quote Patton: "no poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor bastard die for his country." At least make the other poor bastard die with you? if an option :-)

[mike-hunt]

How about a 1 gram gel cap of Sodium or Potassium ? 5 to 10 taken orally or shoved up the anus may be an interesting experiment.

[joffe]

Are you thinking about Sodium or Potassium metal? Pure Potassium or Sodium reacting with water in the body sounds really nasty. And who knows what will happen? But as a means of suicide.... I think you'll have to be Japanese to appreciate that one. But if violent reactions inside your body catches your fancy. You might appreciate this one:

In one of France's former African colonies in the late 70's, the local garbage who fancied themselves as freedom fighters, smuggled blasting caps in plastic cylinders stuck up their rearmost. The French then gave suspected smugglers a really bumby ride in an APC. The results were supposed to be quite spectacular (lots of blood) sometimes and always fatal.

[iHME]

That is just nasty, doesn't any one think about the cleaning crew?
The cleaning crew is probably happy that AIDS was not as it is now in africa :)

I personally would not commit suicide by the means of a rectal explosion :eek:
Too bad that the ragheads are so homophobic :p