Someone recently mentioned that SN is not distributed anymore to individuals in Poland. And Eastern Europe was the way to go if you want to order SN in Germany. So I googled the German name of SN. I barely found anything but this article was interesting. The topic is Amazon's role in SN deaths. It was published on a platform with a discussion board. And there were 258 comments under this article. Many of them contained irony but seriously argumented in favor of going on with the distribution of SN. You can kill yourself with anything if you are determined enough. Some acted like smartasses and pretended SN was useless if one has the intention to die. I was surprised the article even mentioned this forum without saying its name though. Many comments from Germans online on suicide seem to be quite liberal.
I will translate here some comments with an online translator.
www.heise.de
First one confuses nitrite with nitrat by the way:
Amazon is not to blame
If you don't want the nitrate, then just get something else. I feel sorry for the relatives. Depression is a terrible illness. Parents should try to ban sales for minors here rather than annoying Amazon with it. However, as a precaution, the Amazon representative who wrote the letter "in God's hands" should be fired or reassigned before even worse PR is generated.
Second one:
None of them were in my chemistry class.
Hopefully my older ex-students all know that the quantity makes the poison. Someone has successfully killed themselves with distilled water - is that why it's banned?
Rarely heard such nonsense! As someone who has heard the other side calling, I know death wish and how attention revolves around opportunities to kill yourself. He who seeks finds!
(I have been successfully treated.)
My personal remarks:
I have the feeling many of the comments contain a lot dumbass half-knowledge of wanna be smartasses. For me these comments are interesting because I was always curious how the German people would react to the existence of this forum. On liberal assisted suicide the people are very pro-choice. The media though ignores this forum mostly there is a lot of room left for speculation.
Third one:
Ropes are used for suicides. Hardware store XYZ continues to sell it
This is roughly how I see the sense of reporting or banning the sale of potentially deadly preservatives. Many substances are deadly. If you know how, you can use many things that are freely available and deadly.
From charcoal to helium (balloon gas), paraceatamol, ropes, shoelaces, various cleaning products, plastic bags, tall buildings, railway lines, plants growing wild and in gardens, those who want to commit suicide have a wide range of different means at their disposal to end their life. I am deliberately only listing a small fraction of the possibilities here.
Education and help in advance of prevention is much more important.
Besides, death with sodium nitride is anything but beautiful or without suffering. I can think of alternatives that are much easier to access, cheaper and, above all, less painful.
Fourth comment:
It would be better to fight the reasons for suicide - no NaNO2
In my opinion, it would be better to address the reasons for suicide rather than trying to ban everything that could cause it!
Or rather the big poison warning signs - more suitable for children, according to some experts.
I already had sodium nitrite as a child, around 12 or 13 years old, to produce nitrogen or, for example, hexanitrocobaltate (reagent for potassium). Or e.g. this microreaction potassium-copper-lead nitrite with black cube-shaped crystals.
It would never have occurred to me to do anything stupid with the relatively non-toxic nitrite. Not only because it didn't seem very suitable for that, but because the bottle wasn't marked as poisonous at all, or wasn't labeled as poisonous, even though I of course knew that.
Fifth comment (typical German anti-US rant concerning guns:
And how many suicides by guns?
Would be interesting to see if you
of all places in the gun-hungry USA would try the same thing
Justification for banning weapons.
Sixth:
Streisand effect
The politicians and media who promote sodium nitrite to the public as a suicide drug are more to blame for its continued use than the dealers who sell it.
Seventh:
In Japan, charcoal grills were once even banned
Because it's so easy to kill yourself.
What is more interesting, however, is that many people seem to have a strong interest in ending their lives as painlessly as possible. And then do it when possible. What mmn. (-> imo) falls under free self-development.
Everyone can do whatever they want with their life. Point.
OP again speaking.
So what do you think about these Germans? I am not sure how representative they are. Are the comments similar in your country?
I will translate here some comments with an online translator.
Suizide: Amazon wegen Verkauf von Konservierungsmittel unter Druck
Das zur Konservierung von Lebensmitteln zugelassen Natriumnitrit wird in den USA immer häufiger für Selbsttötungen verwendet. Amazon verkauft es weiterhin.
First one confuses nitrite with nitrat by the way:
Amazon is not to blame
If you don't want the nitrate, then just get something else. I feel sorry for the relatives. Depression is a terrible illness. Parents should try to ban sales for minors here rather than annoying Amazon with it. However, as a precaution, the Amazon representative who wrote the letter "in God's hands" should be fired or reassigned before even worse PR is generated.
Second one:
None of them were in my chemistry class.
Hopefully my older ex-students all know that the quantity makes the poison. Someone has successfully killed themselves with distilled water - is that why it's banned?
Rarely heard such nonsense! As someone who has heard the other side calling, I know death wish and how attention revolves around opportunities to kill yourself. He who seeks finds!
(I have been successfully treated.)
My personal remarks:
I have the feeling many of the comments contain a lot dumbass half-knowledge of wanna be smartasses. For me these comments are interesting because I was always curious how the German people would react to the existence of this forum. On liberal assisted suicide the people are very pro-choice. The media though ignores this forum mostly there is a lot of room left for speculation.
Third one:
Ropes are used for suicides. Hardware store XYZ continues to sell it
This is roughly how I see the sense of reporting or banning the sale of potentially deadly preservatives. Many substances are deadly. If you know how, you can use many things that are freely available and deadly.
From charcoal to helium (balloon gas), paraceatamol, ropes, shoelaces, various cleaning products, plastic bags, tall buildings, railway lines, plants growing wild and in gardens, those who want to commit suicide have a wide range of different means at their disposal to end their life. I am deliberately only listing a small fraction of the possibilities here.
Education and help in advance of prevention is much more important.
Besides, death with sodium nitride is anything but beautiful or without suffering. I can think of alternatives that are much easier to access, cheaper and, above all, less painful.
Fourth comment:
It would be better to fight the reasons for suicide - no NaNO2
In my opinion, it would be better to address the reasons for suicide rather than trying to ban everything that could cause it!
Or rather the big poison warning signs - more suitable for children, according to some experts.
I already had sodium nitrite as a child, around 12 or 13 years old, to produce nitrogen or, for example, hexanitrocobaltate (reagent for potassium). Or e.g. this microreaction potassium-copper-lead nitrite with black cube-shaped crystals.
It would never have occurred to me to do anything stupid with the relatively non-toxic nitrite. Not only because it didn't seem very suitable for that, but because the bottle wasn't marked as poisonous at all, or wasn't labeled as poisonous, even though I of course knew that.
Fifth comment (typical German anti-US rant concerning guns:
And how many suicides by guns?
Would be interesting to see if you
of all places in the gun-hungry USA would try the same thing
Justification for banning weapons.
Sixth:
Streisand effect
The politicians and media who promote sodium nitrite to the public as a suicide drug are more to blame for its continued use than the dealers who sell it.
Seventh:
In Japan, charcoal grills were once even banned
Because it's so easy to kill yourself.
What is more interesting, however, is that many people seem to have a strong interest in ending their lives as painlessly as possible. And then do it when possible. What mmn. (-> imo) falls under free self-development.
Everyone can do whatever they want with their life. Point.
OP again speaking.
So what do you think about these Germans? I am not sure how representative they are. Are the comments similar in your country?
Last edited:
