Suicide Kit: What You Want To Know
A prepared suicide kit that includes large plastic bags with soft elastic bands sewn around their openings and a slot in each bag for a tube of helium gas—which is lethal since it is a pure gas—to be inserted. Helium gas must be obtained independently by kit users.
A homemade chemical “kit” in which formic acid and sulphuric acid are combined to produce carbon monoxide, which results in death.
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Table of Contents
“Suicide Kits” For Sale
80% to 90% of people who attempt suicide and fail do not attempt suicide again, depending on the study, so the methodology is important. The public health implication is that suicide deaths can be avoided by controlling access to popular and efficient suicide tools, primarily firearms, specific chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
With this in mind, what are we to make of the fact that highly purified sodium nitrite, a suicide method that is becoming more and more popular, has been easily accessible on Amazon in the US? A lawsuit filed on September, 29th accuses Amazon and Loudwolf – a sodium nitrite manufacturer featured on Amazon – of “promoting and aiding” the suicide of two teenagers. A Twitter thread by Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer working on the case, characterized Amazon as a “serial killer.”
The case will likely turn on a number of details alleged by the plaintiffs: that Amazon recommendations packaged together sodium nitrite with other supplies and informational materials in so-called “suicide kits”; that Amazon failed to uphold its own policies, Loudwolf failed to include FDA-required warning labels on sodium nitrite, Amazon was previously warned about sodium nitrite being used in suicides but did nothing, no information was provided about methylene blue (the recommended treatment for sodium nitrite poisoning), there is no compelling reason to permit household purchases of pure sodium nitrite, and, of course, both deaths were accidental.
Without getting into the specifics, however, the case is a continuation of a decades-long trend in which the internet has helped people commit suicide by offering a sense of community, disseminating information, and even helping people buy the necessary supplies.
Usenet news group alt.suicide.holiday, which is akin to an online discussion board, was where it all started in 1990. Users would discuss suicide openly while exchanging advice and resources. Although that organization is no longer around, there have been numerous variations. An updated version is to blame for sodium nitrite’s rising popularity as a suicide method. These websites’ relationships with the law and the media are complicated because recommending or encouraging suicide is illegal in many U.S. jurisdictions. Such forums begin as niche communities of the suicidal for the suicidal, and end up as New York Times exposés (most recently in Once made aware, grieving families and the general public frequently demand (successfully) that these websites be taken down or excluded from internet search results (by December of 2021).
In contrast to the prevailing public health or prevention narrative of suicide, the leitmotif of these communities is, in their words, “pro-choice.” The rationale behind this claim is that our personal autonomy and right to self-determination simply extend to include the right to suicide.
People are given broad discretion to make their own decisions as long as they do not adversely affect the rights of others, which is especially true in liberal individual rights-oriented contexts, where autonomy is a fundamental ethical principle.
Patients have almost unlimited freedom to refuse medical care, for instance, in American medicine. Humans aren’t always autonomous actors, though. For instance, it is prohibited for children to decide on their own health care. Another frequent exception is being drunk. Rarely, users of the sedative zolpidem (Ambien) have been reported to engage in sexual assault or other crimes. The argument in favor of this is that these weren’t spontaneous actions and didn’t originate from the offender’s true motivations and desires.
Can a person commit suicide on their own volition? Suicide, according to the dominant medical theory, almost by definition cannot occur because of a severe mental illness. Risk of harm to oneself or others is a justification under American law for infringing on the patient’s autonomy and requiring them to receive treatment.
Suicidality is viewed as a sign that a person lacks mental capacity and is unable to make independent decisions. Suicide undermines individuality.
Those in the online suicide “pro-choice” community challenge this logic and hold that suicide can be a reasonable reaction to a person’s life and circumstances, and people should have access to the knowledge and means to kill themselves relatively painlessly. They are at least somewhat philosophically accompanied in this. Suicide, according to controversial Hungarian-American philosopher and psychotherapist Thomas Szasz, is simply a choice rather than a sign of sin or illness.
Szasz is an extreme example and had strong reservations about the term “mental illness.” However, there is growing recognition in the West that suicide may not always be irrational, in contrast to a previous Christian sanctity-of-life framing. Instead, it might be a reasonable reaction to circumstances where someone’s quality of life falls below a predetermined threshold. The proponents of physician-assisted suicide and medical aid in dying, known as the right-to-die movement, are a good example. A terminally ill person with six months or less to live can request a lethal drug they can ingest in ten states that currently allow medical aid in dying. Supporters of medical aid in dying emphasize that the practice is different from suicide, in part so they can avoid the stigma attached to it, but the conceptual distinctions are hazy.
Even though assisted suicide is legal in some other countries, American law is still considered to be relatively conservative. Several nations, including Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, permit voluntary euthanasia on the grounds of severe and incurable mental suffering even in the absence of terminal illness or even any physical illness at all. (The ethics of this have been previously discussed here at the Prindle Post.) The voluntary euthanasia case of Aurelia Brouwers in the Netherlands in 2018 after years of unsuccessful mental health treatment raised awareness of the practice. She was the focus of a documentary short.
Distinctions about how much longer someone has to live or whether the suffering is physical or mental become less important once it is acknowledged that indescribable suffering alone is a sufficient justification for suicide.
Although assisted suicide requests based on mental suffering are supposed to be subject to stringent safeguards, critics worry that mistakes still occur. Be aware, however, that the focus of the conversation now shifts from suicide itself to the method—namely, how to do it in an appropriate and moral way.
Unexpectedly, parts of the disability rights movement are among the most vocal opponents of the right-to-die movement. The worry is that because of prejudice against those with disabilities or poor medical care, people may feel pressured to choose assisted suicide, i.e. that these decisions are not fully autonomous. Of course, there will always be causes for suicide, and these causes frequently stem from more systemic social and economic problems. Suicide has been linked to poverty before. Depending on where one is standing, this may or may not seem reasonable. Suicide may seem like a reasonable response in some cases due to environmental factors like poverty, debt, personal tragedy, and discrimination. And yet, it may seem obscene to have a state-approved procedure that facilitates suicides that are at least partially fueled by these factors, which the state itself frequently perpetuates (or at the very least is best positioned to address).)
The right policy prescription can still not be agreed upon. When it comes to specific issues like when suicide is an autonomous act, what safeguards should be in place, what constitutes unbearable suffering (or a lack of hope for improvement), and what preventive measures are appropriate, mental health professionals, suicide prevention advocates, the American right-to-die movement, disability rights activists, and the online suicide pro-choice community can all share a broad commitment to self-determination.
However, very few people would think anything other than a tragedy of 16-year-olds committing suicide by following online instructions and buying chemicals online.
According to statistics, it’s likely that the teens involved in the lawsuit against Amazon would have been successfully treated if they had tried to commit suicide using a less dangerous method, and their attempt would have been history.
Without speculating on the specifics of the case, it is still important to recognize that Amazon cannot be solely blamed for this or any suicide, regardless of the company’s flaws. People are searching for resources and information. And at least some suicides will turn to well-known, incredibly lethal means like firearms. It is also true that the biggest risk factor for a later successful suicide is prior suicide attempts, even though the majority of people who attempt suicide and fail do not do so again. Cynically put, there is a demand. Considering the applicability of the method, supply regulation is crucial, but it is limited in its effectiveness. Suicide frequently occurs at the confluence of resources, mental health, and individual and environmental circumstances.
One fairly radical perspective on suicide would be as a regulated right, something that is allowed but strictly regulated. It stands to reason that seeking state-approved suicide would include receiving medical and mental health care. People would have to have good reasons (whatever the society determines those reasons to be) and go through the proper approval process before they could look for suicide aid or materials.
Negotiating the specifics of this approval procedure is difficult, as nations like the Netherlands and Canada demonstrate. There will undoubtedly be a delicate balance between the interests of various communities, including those who are suicidal, their families, mental health professionals, disability rights activists, religious groups, and the state. Nevertheless, taking the demand for suicide seriously may help to make suicidality a topic that people can discuss openly and perhaps receive treatment for. A society should undoubtedly investigate the motivations behind its members’ attempts at suicide.
Amazon “Suicide Kits” Have Led To Teen Deaths, According To New Lawsuit
Lawyers, who are representing parents suing Amazon for selling “suicide kits” to teenagers who died by suicide, say they have reached a “breaking point.”
Amazon lawyers have allegedly told parents that the online retailer had a right to sell these so-called “suicide kits.” The kits are defined in the lawsuit as bundled products that Amazon suggests customers buy together. They include a potentially fatal substance called sodium nitrite, a scale for calculating a lethal dose, a medication to stop vomiting, and a book with instructions on how to use the substance to attempt suicide. The online retailer’s lawyers also allegedly said that it would be “unfair and inhumane” to hold The deaths of the teens were caused by Amazon.
Carrie Goldberg, one of the parents’ attorneys, claimed on Twitter yesterday that Amazon’s connections with CBS and other media outlets are effectively stifling coverage of their lawsuit while additional lives are undoubtedly still at risk.
“For months, we avoided press attention to this case,” Goldberg, who founded C.A. In a statement, Goldberg, PLLC provided information to Ars. “However, the number of deaths has reached an unsustainable level, medical professionals are unaware of the problem or that a cure is available, and stories about the issue are being pushed by the media, most likely because of their connections to Amazon’s corporate parent company.”
In her tweet thread, Goldberg claimed that a producer told her that CBS canceled a pair of 60 Minutes segments on the lawsuit—after CBS requested an exclusive—because “higher-ups at CBS rejected the report.” Allegedly, the producer said these executives “didn’t want to risk anybody dying from suicide on account of their segment.” Ars found that CBS News has previously in 2020 reported on lethal uses of sodium nitrite and last month did a 60 Minutes segment on child suicides.
Parents allegedly told Goldberg that CBS canceling was understandable because “everyone is afraid of Amazon.” Parents have also taken notice of CBS’ partnership with Amazon Prime, according to Goldberg’s tweet.
Earlier than connecting their clients with CBS reporters, the law firm had extensive communication with CBS, according to Goldberg’s tweets, to make sure that CBS had experience covering suicide and knew how to handle the segments delicately. Goldberg set up a Zoom with parents suing after receiving assurances from CBS and a promise that the segment would air. She was worried that the interviews might retraumatize her clients and that, to them, speaking to CBS would only be worthwhile if it helped others understand the suffering they had gone through.
“CBS’ failures have been demoralizing and deeply confusing,” Goldberg tweeted. “Why did they repeatedly reassure us that they knew how to deal with it if it was really about not wanting to report on suicides?”
Following Ars’ request for comment, CBS did not immediately respond. An Amazon spokesperson provided a statement to Ars, saying, “We offer our sincere condolences to the families and close friends of those who have committed suicide. At Amazon, customer security comes first. As part of our commitment to providing a secure shopping environment, we demand that all selling partners who list products in our store abide by all relevant laws and regulations.”
According to the complaint, “Amazon argues that some states exempt defendants who cause a personal injury where that injury took place during an attempted or successful suicide from liability when selling sodium nitrite and other products that are known to be used for suicide.”
Amazon Appears To Bundle Items Into “Suicide Kits”
In a lawsuit they filed in California, parents alleged that despite the fact that it is against the law for anyone, including businesses, to aid or abet suicide, Amazon is the No. 1 “vendor of sodium nitrite used for suicides” and has been “knowingly assisting in the deaths of healthy children by selling them suicide kits.”
An additional defendant in the lawsuit is Loudwolf, the No. 1 Amazon seller. 1 “brand of sodium nitrite sold by Amazon.”
When Ars asked Loudwolf for comment regarding the quantity of sodium nitrite it sells on Amazon, a response was not given right away. The lawsuit asserts that Amazon has also omitted to provide this information. Earlier this year, Amazon failed to meet a deadline set by a congressional inquiry (following a New York Times investigation into the matter) to confirm “the number of units of sodium nitrite” that Amazon sold. The lawsuit says that Congress expressed concern in a letter to the online retailer that Amazon provides “minors and adults with easy access to sodium nitrite, a deadly chemical.”
The lawsuit’s descriptions of the two teen suicide cases show how simple it can be for teenagers to buy the substance on Amazon right away.
When the pandemic prevented a teen named Kristine from seeing her friends in September 2020, she began to have suicidal thoughts. Kristine kept her emotions from her family but registered on the website Sanctioned-Suicide.org, where, according to the lawsuit, users increasingly link to Amazon to persuade others to purchase sodium nitrite as a preferred suicidal method.
As the lawsuit points out, Amazon does not conduct age verification, so Kristine was able to circumvent its policies against underage account holders after learning that it would deliver the chemical in 48 hours on Amazon even though she was under 18. Loudwolf fulfilled her order for the substance. She made the purchase just a few weeks after having suicidal thoughts, and the package was delivered on her mother’s birthday, two days later. Her family discovered her dead the following morning, next to her was the bottle and the Amazon packaging.
In the other case, a teenager by the name of Ethan placed an order in January 2021 using his mother’s Amazon account. When the mother noticed the order and inquired, all of her children said they did not place it. The family claimed they had no indication that Ethan was having trouble. Ethan’s mother believed her account had been compromised, turned on two-factor authentication, and immediately canceled the order. However, Amazon worked so quickly that the package had already left their warehouse two hours after the order was placed. Within a week of placing the order, the package arrived, Ethan intercepted it, and he passed away.
Other Online Retailers Stopped Selling Sodium Nitrite
In the complaint, it’s noted that, years ago, other online retailers like Etsy and eBay “stopped selling sodium nitrite when they learned it was frequently being used for suicide.” Parents who are suing claim that Amazon could take a variety of measures to block access to these products by individuals who may harm themselves. They point out that eBay has systems in place for users and regulators to flag attempts to sell sodium nitrite.
According to them, Amazon could, among other things, issue warnings, demand age verification before approving any purchases, restrict purchases to only authorized customers, prohibit the sale of the product to minors, or outright ban it. The lawsuit also points out that Amazon already complies with UK laws that forbade the sale of sodium nitrite due to worries that suicide attempts would rise as a result of the chemical’s ease of access. It has been suggested that Amazon might implement that same standard of care everywhere.
In addition, it is claimed that by failing to include a warning label on the sodium nitrite it sells, Loudwolf is in violation of Amazon’s seller policies. Instead of a clear label that says “Keep out of reach of children,” Loudwolf’s product’s warning is pictured saying, “This chemical is of reagent-grade purity. In addition to many technical and domestic uses, it is appropriate for the majority of experimental and analytical applications. There are thousands of known uses for this substance. Please conduct your own research to determine how it applies to your particular goal.”
Another warning label says, “Oxidizer, irritant, and danger.”
One of three brands of sodium nitrite that Amazon sells with concentrations greater than 98 percent, according to the lawsuit, is Loudwolf. Loudwolf’s product sold on Amazon has 99.6 percent purity, which the lawsuit notes “actually exceeds the American Chemistry Society standard of 97 percent purity” for science and research purposes and is “a purity level for which there is no non-institutional or household use.” Comparatively, the lawsuit claims that the sodium nitrite used to cure jerky has a 6 percent purity level.
“Sodium nitrite is a legal and widely available product offered by retailers to preserve foods, such as meats and fish, and for use in laboratories as a reagent,” According to a spokesperson for Amazon, Ars. “Sodium nitrite is not meant to be consumed, but sadly, it can be misused, just like many other products.”
Amazon says that searches for the word “suicide” present customers with a banner at the top of their search results with the phone number for the Call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. The complaint includes screenshots showing that Amazon auto-fills the search field for buyers, plugging in the word “suicide” after someone types “sodium nitrite” and suggesting that search above “sodium nitrite salt.”
In their lawsuit, parents are suing Amazon and Loudwolf for damages, including punitive damages, lost income accumulation, funeral and burial costs, and punitive damages. They’ve asked for a jury to decide total damages owed for the companies’ allegedly “directly and proximately” causing both The passings of Kristine and Ethan.
Source:
https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2022/10/suicide-kits-for-sale/
