How high would the suicide rate be like if barbiturates were still prescribed as sleeping pills?

[noname223]

I am not sure. First I don't say with this thread that it would actually be a good thing. For example people who don't want to die could accidentally kill themselves.

I am not sure what to assume for this hypothetical scenario. Could you buy N at the supermarket for 5 bucks? Would there be a warning about the lethality?. Would doctors prescribe it also to acute suicidal people no matter the circumstances?

To be honest if you could buy N in a supermarket for 5 bucks the suicide rate might spike to 20% of all people. I think suicide would become normalized. There are also disadvantages if that happpened.

My take: I think I would not supprt the N at the supermarket for any age idea. But the current laws are also insanely extreme into the opposite direction. They are just not reasonable. They are way too restrictive. I prefer a common sense approach which seemingly is disliked by the elites.

I could imagine for example many elderly people would not want to go through the pain one often experiences at that age (for example when getting diagnosed with cancer). Many of them say they are finished with life and just wait for death to happen. Not all of course noone is forced to do it. Actually I am in favor of giving poor/vulnerable people way more money and support so that noone if forced to do it. The current logic by politicans is we might influene suicidal people subliminally by legalizing assister suicide. They would feel not welcome enough by the society.
There are a lot of good arguments against that. Though I will focus on one. Let's improve the lives of people who actually don't want to die. Make life easier for them. Help them substantially with more money, housing, health care, free education, counselling, better research etc. This would outweight this alleged sublminal impact on such people by far. (if it really existed)

How high would you expect the suicide rate to climb if barbiturates were still prescribed as sleeping pills?

 

[アホペンギン]

Suicide rates would go quite high if nembutal was widely available, especially if you could buy it for 5 bucks at the store or if they were still prescribed as sleeping pills; many people at some point in their lives experience the desire to die, many of them would act impulsively and they would become part of the statistics.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

They say you could/can get N in many Latin American countries but you didn't find large swaths of the Peruvian population, for example, being wiped out even though material hardship is more prevalent.

20% is way too high.

I don't have any answers as how to balance the accessibility/destigmatization of suicide and not making it be dependent on the medical complex.

 

[UKscotty]

I doubt it would be much higher than it is now.

The issue is not the availability of methods the problem is our SI.

Most people can figure out how to get onto the main markets where you can easily fine pento, xanax, fentanyl and all sorts of common CTB substances.

 

[noname223]

They say you could/can get N in many Latin American countries but you didn't find large swaths of the Peruvian population, for example, being wiped out even though material hardship is more prevalent.

20% is way too high.

I don't have any answers as how to balance the accessibility/destigmatization of suicide and not making it be dependent on the medical complex.

In my calculation I considered that there is and will be huge medical progress where people can become way older then now. My feeling was most people will come to the conclusion quality over quantity when they are over 90 or 100 years old.

My idea was not that they would all kill themselves in a young age.

But you might be right that 20% is way too higjh. There are so many variables which would influence the dynamic that a prediction would be extremely difficult.

 

[Gonnerr]

Economy would crash but at least earth would be better with less human , remember the pandemic, earth was starting to heal in many places.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

In my calculation I considered that there is and will be huge medical progress where people can become way older then now. My feeling was most people will come to the conclusion quality over quantity when they are over 90 or 100 years old.

My idea was not that they would all kill themselves in a young age.

But you might be right that 20% is way too higjh. There are so many variables which would influence the dynamic that a prediction would be extremely difficult.

Well, you are right that an ever-incresing population and lifespan may change attitudes towards suicide.

 

[𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘆]

I don't think suicide rate would change regardless of accessibility of [methods].
When people get on the edge they will use anything to end their misery.
Making [methods] easy to access won't push anyone to ctb just like making [methods] hard to access won't push people away from ctb'ing.

 

[FuneralCry]

I imagine it would massively increase as after all existence is nothing more than undesirable suffering, it would be such a relief for so many people if they could just easily cease existing in peace and didn't have to struggle to free themselves from this existence they were burdened with in the first place.
I hate how suicide isn't that straightforward, it's so horrible and cruel how it's so difficult to cease existing with suicide purposely made so inaccessible.

 

[RichardFirst]

I think the number of people wanting to off themselves would not rise, but the numbers succeeding would. There would be far, far fewer failed attempts, for starters.

Mind you, it used to be possible to buy pure opium in a pharmacy. Was self-deletion much higher in the past? I'm not sure about that.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I don't think it would even have to be something as obviously lethal and fit for purpose as Nembutal. I think- if sleeping tablets were as potent as they were in the 50's/60's- we'd likely see a lot more successful overdoses. They've made prescribed drugs a lot harder to overdose on I think.

But yeah- if we had effective and painless ways out, I'm sure we would see a lot more suicides. Not just the rate itself- the success rate would be that much higher too. Isn't it something like only 1 in 24/25 attempts succeeds in a fatality? I bet a lot of those failures are overdoses.