SCOURGE OF SUICIDE DRUG
Death toll hits in just months Still for sale despite coroners’ warnings
A ‘SUICIDE drug’ is being hawked on sick internet forums despite alerts from SEVEN coroners.
The poison – which we are not naming – is linked to 35 deaths in just 18 months.
It can be bought cheaply and legally online and delivered to the vulnerable.
That is despite coroners urging ministers to act after inquests into victims.
Their families say the Government’s slow response is costing lives.
Catherine Nihill – whose son Joe, 23, took his life in Leeds in 2020 – said: “Almost all of the suicides are linked to the same website. We have campaigned for it to be taken down off the internet in this country but have got nowhere.
“It’s been removed in Germany, Italy and Australia, so why can’t our government get it stopped?”
The seventh coroner’s alert was sounded in June at an inquest for IT apprentice James Nowshadi, 23. The coroner said she was aware of 35 similar deaths in 18 months and warned the Department of Health: “Future deaths will occur unless action is taken.”
Strangers
James had told mental health workers of his suicide plan and that he had ordered the drug from abroad to be delivered to his home in Harston, Cambs.
His family were not informed because of “confidentiality” – and the inquest heard clinicians had “little knowledge and understanding” of the drug.
His parents believe he had swapped messages on suicide sites in the weeks before killing himself in March 2020.
Mum Maria, 54, a paediatric nurse, said: “I went on a forum after James died and I had to stop reading. It nearly convinced me that I wanted to commit suicide. I didn’t have to log on and I had no idea who these strangers were.
“People at their most vulnerable are being talked into taking their lives with a drug that can be bought easily.
“Until something is done, more young people are going to take their lives.
“The Government and health practitioners are behind the curve on this.
“If James said he had cyanide or a loaded gun, maybe they would have taken it more seriously.”
We told how another victim, Jay Thompson, 49, from Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, bought the drug online. A coroner’s warning prompted the online giant to ban its sale.
In May, the Government said it aimed “to establish a consultation this summer on possible amendments to the Poisons Act”.
The Department of Health said it took “robust action where needed”.