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Published: May 26, 2008

“Death tourists”

Euthanasia group sending people who want to kill themselves to Tijuana, where life-ending drugs are said to be easy to come by

Reforma, one of the most influential newspapers in Mexico, recently published on its front page a series of articles describing an option Exit International, a pro-euthanasia organization in Australia, is offering to aged and terminally ill patients: go to Tijuana to get life-ending drugs.

According to Exit, since 2001 more than 200 persons have traveled from Australia to Tijuana to secure pentobarbital, which is regularly used to anesthetize or euthanize animals. The drug is sold without control at veterinary pharmacies in cities along the Mexico-US border.

Known in Australia as Nembutal (one of its many commercial names), sodium pentobarbital is used in the Netherlands and in the state of Oregon for the practice of assisted suicide. Its distribution in Australia is illegal, and its sale in Mexico is permitted only by prescription, and is limited exclusively for veterinary medicine.

But Tijuana is a unique world, where getting any prohibited item is only a matter of asking the right person: “It’s as easy to get the suicide drug as to get vitamins,” concluded Reforma.

“Death tourists” travel 14 hours by airplane from Australia to Los Angeles, and then another two hours by bus to the Mexican border, the Mexico City daily reported. Just across the border, in the heart of Tijuana’s tourist district -- among cantinas, Mexican curio shops and restaurants -- they find several options to buy their suicide drug, at very moderate prices and without any inconvenient questions.

The Peaceful Pill Handbook, co-written by Exit International director Philip Nitschke, gives the addresses of various veterinary pharmacies in Tijuana that sell the product in its different presentations. Once the “death tourists” find a pharmacy and buy the drug, they go back home with their bottle of pentobarbital hidden in their baggage, Reforma reported.

Don Flounders, a 78-year-old Australian suffering from a malignant mesolthelioma, made the death trip to Tijuana this past Feb. 14. He declares himself an atheist, said Reforma, and asserts that “God cannot dictate how I’ll die; the most productive thing I can do with my body is to have it cremated and transformed into fertilizer.”

A 50-year-old American woman, under a fictitious name, agreed to collaborate with a Reforma reporter to show how easy it is for a foreigner to get barbituates at border-city veterinary pharmacies. In one such pharmacy, “Kate” bought “Sodium pentobarbital, 100 milliliters,” which had a dog’s image on its label. In another one, she bought “Anestesal,” also included in the Exit International handbook, with the instruction: “To practice euthanasia, a double or triple dose of the anesthetic is needed,” explaining, of course, that the product is for veterinary use. At another pharmacy she found “Fenidantoin,” another presentation of pentobarbital, 100 tablets, for only $12.

The activities of Exit International, including the trips to Mexico, have not gone unnoticed by Australian authorities. On May 5, a Sydney court began a trial for murder against an employee and an activist of the pro-euthanasia organization. Shirley Justin, 59, an Exit member, was accused of murdering Graeme Wylie on May 2006 with a lethal dose of Nembutal. Caren Jenning, 74, was charged as accomplice in the homicide for supplying the drug to Justin and for illegally bringing it to Australia from Mexico.

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