> and unable to drink, so certainly terribly thirsty the whole time.
I know people that work in hospice, and they say this is a big misconception (the article hints at it too). they patients don't die from lack of water, they don't want water because they are dying, and their body can't process it. In fact, as you kind of touched on at the start, giving them IV fluids can cause them to drown since their body can't process the water.
Death is pretty ugly thing, that comes for us all. I got to learn the fun way that in the state of Oregon, it is illegal to disable a pacemaker. Even when the person has a DNR, and it is really the only thing keeping them alive. The best the doctors can do is turn the pacemaker down as low as possible, and hope its not enough to keep the person artificially alive. Which seems kind of really weird, when its also the first and one of the only states that allows medically assisted suicide..
Granted death penalty opponents are biased, but it's often said that barbituate overdose is a very unpleasant way to die. I've also heard opiod overdose is unpleasant.
I was once helping take down a 10-foot weather balloon full of helium, and took in two breaths in a row of pure helium. I started to get tunnel vision, said "whoah", sat down when I realized I was about to lose consciousness, fell down, and twitched just long enough for my friend to realize I wasn't joking around before I woke up. From my experience, hypoxia from pure helium is slightly pleasant all the way to loss of consciousness. I presume pure nitrogen would be nearly the same.
Let my last words be something witty in a high-pitched helium voice.
(Side note: pure nitrogen hypoxia would not be a particularly humane form of execution because the condemned would likely fight it by holding on to their last breath.)
Yup, AFIAK hypoxia is the best way to go. Survivors who are rescued in time (or, like you, self-rescue) don't have a bad experience. The MAiD protocol used in Canada likewise appears to not be a bad experience as the only thing the patient experiences is anesthesia.
I'm also coming to the conclusion that inert gas hypoxia is going to be my way out. My end has to be, as far as I can make it, painless and polite, meaning a happy exit with minimal inconveniencing of as few as possible other people. Any suitable substance for this seems to be taken off the market, even basic stuff like metal nitrites (as used in curing meat. Try getting hold of a nontrivial amount of this in the UK). I don't have the inclination to follow up Project Peanut; I don't have the background for this.
I fully understand why this has been done, to stop people who only intermittently get the urge, but for someone like me it's a major bloody inconvenience, so inert gas it most likely is.
(The above is not an opener for a discussion, it's an FYI for a different perspective. Please don't respond).
I had general anaesthesia for a surgery, and I can remember the falling asleep was only very slightly uncomfortable. so I think it can be done - once I'm under, just cut out something important and throw everything in the furnace.
It's probably ironic that it's never been easier to buy that drug (and others) and decide your own fate compared with trying for a dignified and hopefully pain-free death the "legal" way.
I suspect it's the only Europe-UK supply chain that hasn't been affected by Brexit :) Maybe the Tories need to persuade a few drug dealers to go straight and fix the whole supply chain problem.
I'm no expert myself but recently had a relative in hospice,[0] which prompted me to look into this issue a bit. There are a few papers (for a recent example, Kingdon et al. (2020))[1] that say that the data is actually extremely low-quality on both sides of the issue. Personally, this makes me wonder if "fluids are bad" might just be received wisdom and/or anecdata... hopefully someone will do a better study(ies) at some point in order to get actually reliable data.
[0] We did end up following the hospice's recommendations not to administer IV fluids, for what it's worth.
All the US death with dignity laws are lethal prescriptions only, the patient must self-administer. Turning off a pacemaker would be the doctor doing it, not the patient.
I know people that work in hospice, and they say this is a big misconception (the article hints at it too). they patients don't die from lack of water, they don't want water because they are dying, and their body can't process it. In fact, as you kind of touched on at the start, giving them IV fluids can cause them to drown since their body can't process the water.
Death is pretty ugly thing, that comes for us all. I got to learn the fun way that in the state of Oregon, it is illegal to disable a pacemaker. Even when the person has a DNR, and it is really the only thing keeping them alive. The best the doctors can do is turn the pacemaker down as low as possible, and hope its not enough to keep the person artificially alive. Which seems kind of really weird, when its also the first and one of the only states that allows medically assisted suicide..