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TO LIE FOR |
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WHAT'S SO HARD ABOUT PAINLESS DEATH? We've all seen quick and seemingly painless deaths in the movies. A secret agent slips a little white pill into someone's martini and moments later, after a few mild convulsions and a slight frothing at the mouth, the person drops dead. So what's the fuss? Why can't Oregon pharmacists just develop a killing pill that would end the shouting match over plastic bags and failure rates? One reason, says Gary Schnabel of the Oregon Board of Pharmacy, is that those little white pills in the movies (theoretically) contain cyanide, which is a poison and not a drug. Hitler swallowed a cyanide pill to kill himself, and prisons use cyanide gas to kill death-row inmates, but doctors can't legally dole out substances not approved as legal medicines by the Food and Drug Administration. If Measure 51 fails, and Measure 16 withstands court challenges, Schnabel predicts that most Oregon doctors assisting suicides will prescribe a barbiturate such as pentobarbital or secobarbital--drugs that slowly and eventually stop the patient's breathing--and an anti-emetic, which prevents nausea and vomiting. Barbara Coombs Lee of Oregon Right to Die says doctors might also add a beta blocker to slow the heart rate. And if the patient drinks, alcohol also helps. Coombs Lee claims that plastic bags are never needed when patients use the right combination of drugs in the proper doses. "The bag is to assisted dying as the coat hanger is to abortion," she says. "When abortions became legal, people didn't need coat hangers." As it turns out, a combination of barbiturates might be the best choice, given that there are few oral alternatives. One is morphine, a pain reliever that that also slows breathing, but many terminally ill patients build up a tolerance to the drug. Measure 16's language seems to exclude the use of injections: "This measure does not authorize lethal injections, mercy killing or active euthanasia," the 1994 measure reads. If injections were to become legal, however, one possibility might be a neuromuscular blocking agent, a drug that kills within minutes by paralyzing the nerves needed to operate breathing muscles. The agent cannot be administered orally, because it dissolves in stomach acid. Were injections legal, yet another choice might be a Kevorkian-like suicide machine. The machine administers three bottles of intravenous solution containing barbiturates, potassium chloride to stop the heart, and saline that acts as a medium for the drugs. During a brief time in Australia when physician-assisted suicide became legal, doctors there used a similar machine linked to a point-and-click computer program. Click yes if you'd like to continue. No if you've changed your mind. |
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