The first execution of a prisoner, Kenny Smith, using nitrogen hypoxia, took place in the US state of Alabama on 25 Jan 2024. A few weeks earlier I had visited Holman prison to inspect the new equipment they planned to use, and met Kenny on death row with his lawyer Robert Grass. I gave evidence at a hearing in Montgomery a week later in an attempt to stop the execution. Kenny died, but accounts of a slow grotesque death were horrible. When I talked with him I should have explained how he could have made his death fast, peaceful and effective ..read more

When former Dutch Supreme Court Judge, Huib Drion, wrote a short but pointed letter to the editor of the newspaper, NRC, little could he have known what his legacy would be. Drion argued that all older people should have a right to terminate their lives at a time of their choosing. He argued that this was a separate social need to that of euthanasia for the seriously ill. Drion bemoaned that older people like himself were ill-equipped to take this step in way that was peaceful and dignified. He noted that while doctors and pharmacists had access to the means, everyone else would be forced to j ..read more

The Azide Wars have come about with the advent in the Netherlands of Middel X as an end of life method.  As a country where voluntary euthanasia has long been legal, there has been a groundswell of discontentment amongst older people who resent having to ask doctors for help to die. Addressing this souring mood has been activist group CLW who have strongly advocated the use of Middel X, an available, legal inorganic salt they claim provides individuals with a reliable end of life option. In opposition has been the Dutch Medical Association and prominent right to die activists such as Dutc ..read more

The May 2021 Exit Podcast (note name change) features an interview with Philip Nitschke as he reflects on the highs / lows of 25+ years of end of life political activism including the effect on his work of his move to the Netherlands, how it feels to be politically persecuted, major turning points in the debate and where the next generation of activists will come from and who they are ..read more

In early April, Dutch activist group, CLW launched legal action against the Dutch state arguing that the prohibition on assisted suicide and assisted suicide drugs should be abolished. These should be abolished because they prevent self-determination at the end of life. If self-determination is a fundamental human right, they argued that a nation State that keeps the right un-exercisable makes the right a false one and the State is acting unlawfully. The Dutch have taken their lead from recent constitutional court decisions in Germany and Austria which confirm that self-determination is a huma ..read more

Since the scarcity of Nembutal - the best end of life drug - in the US due to both its prohibitive price and the refusal of EU drug manufacturers to sell the drug in that country (because of objections to its use in capital punishment), other alternatives have needed to be examined by doctors working under death with dignity laws. In this Doxit Podcast, Peaceful Pill Handbook authors, Philip Nitschke and Fiona Stewart, discuss the evolution and emergence of the USA Lethal Drug Mixtures. The alternative multi-drug compounds provide a reliable, peaceful death for a fraction of the price of Nembu ..read more

In this week's Doxit Podcast we discuss the January 2021 update to the Peaceful Pill eHandbook which focuses on the two issues of premedication and potentiation and the role both play in a peaceful and reliable death. Potentiation of lethal drugs is relevant if one has old drugs or substances or if they are from dubious sources or if they have been stored for a long time.  Potentiators are also the drugs that bring about sedation, ensuring a more acceptable ‘sleep while you die’ process.  ..read more

The year that was thanks to COVID-19 but it was not all bad news.  Exit’s Doxit Podcast ‘Looking Back Looking Forward’ reflects on the  good and the bad to come out of the pandemic experience. For example,  like so many organisations around the world, Exit moved our core  operations online. Face to face workshops were abandoned in preference  of Zoom workshops. Four, fully-online 4 hour meetings were held between  June and October across different global time zones. The NuTech 2020 conference was also held entirely online in  September. In retrospect, it seem ..read more

From 25 years ago when voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill was so controversial that the Federal Government of Australia used a hitherto unknown section of the Australian Constitution (s122) to overturn the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act to today when politicians can't act fast enough getting behind assisted dying laws as a show of compassion and humanity, the right to die has come a long way. And so 2020 draws to a close with New Zealand finally passing a binding referendum that will see an End of Life Choice Act introduced in that country while Queensland makes ..read more

In this Doxit Podcast we explore the physiology behind the good death. Taking the recent new Peaceful Pill eHandbook chapter on 'Death Physiology' as our starting point, we discuss the science behind the efficacy of some methods as distinct from others (eg. Nembutal over Opiates) and consider how each strategy discussed in the book falls into one of four categories of hypoxia: hypoxic, hypermic, ischemic & histotoxic. In understanding better how the different methods work on the body, there can be increased confidence in the efficacy of a method to provide a peaceful and reliable Exit at a ..read more