h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Random thought...
I really don't think this anger directed at the suicidal is justified. The drug is involved in the death of at least 400 people annually. Drugs are withdrawn from the market or not put into it the first place for being involved in the deaths of far fewer. Focus here is put on those who deliberately use this drug to die. But those misusing the drug with alcohol are just as responsible for the withdrawal.
If you’ve been on this drug for so many years perhaps you dependant on it not because it is the only effective one but for other reasons.

In Canada, suicide is not a crime. However, assisted suicide is.

In the last week, here in Ottawa, there has been a great deal of discussion of the right of suicide by people who are no longer physically able to do it themselves. This was brought dramatically to the forefront with the announcement by a local man, Marcel Tremblay terminally ill with pulmonary fibrosis that he intended to committ suicide.

http://ottawa.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=ot-suicide20050128
http://ottawa.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=tremblay050129

The irony is that, if someone is deemed mentally sound and announces the intent to committ suicide, it is perfectly legal for them to do so in order to save themselves from the inevitable onset of the physical disability which would prevent him from doing so later. However, if they want to continue as long as they possibly can and want to have assisted suicide when they have reached the point where they can no longer bear the pain or want to go out while still able to enjoy their last moments with friendas and family, it is illegal. It makes no sense.

Mr. Tremblay's making his intentions public is not the first of its kind in Canada. In 1992-1993, Sue Rodrigues took her fight to her right to assisted suicide to the Supreme Court of Canada. She lost her case but opened a country-wide debate on the subject. Sue Rodrigues suffered from ALS and eventually, on Feb. 12, 1994, she was assisted by an un-named doctor to end her life.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-69-1135/life_society/sue_rodriguez/
http://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/canlaw.html

My personal opinion is that assisted suicide should be available with rules in place and strict procedure followed. The dirty little secret to the illegality of assisted suicide is that is has been practiced by caring doctors for generations.

To EonBlueApocolypse
QUOTE - "The drug is involved in the death of at least 400 people annually"

Not true. The quoted figures are BETWEEN 300 and 400, NOT at "Least" 400 - this at least to me indicates an potential error of 25% in the figures.

Now, 300 to 400 people apparently have Coprox involved in their suicide attempts. 1.5 MILLION people here in the UK alone take the drug perfectly well. I now ask you, based on those figures - is it even remotely fair to penalise those of us that have used this for decades quite safely?

I want to start some kind of campaign on this because it simply is not right. How is the best way to go about it? Start a web site? Letter campaign? Or do I really have to go to 10 Downing street on my crutches and stand there all day howling at the moon?

This ban has to be stopped, and the fightback has to start now.

Try the Ican site on BBCi, you can use your hootoo logon since SSO.

I will try to find the link, 2 secs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/

One problem you may have is that even if it is the best medication for you, for many of the 1.5 million, it will simply be one of a number they could use.

I assume many prescriptions are for short-term pain relief, where using something that might work slightly less well isn't a serious problem, since someone in pain who knows they are getting better may find it more bearable, and they'll never find out if medications X, Y or Z would have been better for them. Also, medications unsuitable for long-term use might be fine for a week or two.

It seems to be one of the least expensive pain medications, so possibly many people are prescribed it at present partly because it's the cheapest drug that is likely to work. If it's typically one of the first drugs doctors try out, there will be some people using it who could do equally well (or better) on something else.

The important number of people from your point of view is the number of long-term who have tried all the alternatives, and found it is the only one for them. If that number is very small, protests seem unfortunately unlikely to work.

And since it's still quite possible to take the same components separately, I really don't see what the to-do is about. My health plan won't cover the version of tramadol that comes with paracetamol in it, so my doctor just has me take the two together -- actually, she likes it better that way, as we can decide the ratio of the two ingredients based on what works best for me, rather than what the company happened to make it in.

*nods in agreement with Mickey*

For the very small number of people for whom *nothing* else will work they will simply have to take two pills instead of one, one of each of the ingredients.

Co-proxamol is one of the first choice painkillers that doctors try when over the counter remidies aren't working.

The_Doctor_Is_In - Using http://www.faxyourmp.com can't hurt. Um, no pun intended.

I don't want to comment on the issue of the drug withdrawal, but I do want to respond to the several comments along the lines of if someone really wants to kill themselves they will.

I have a friend who spent several days trying to kill themselves and failed. They had no access to easy methods and the ways they tried were just too difficult for them manage. Personally I'm glad that they didn't have access to any kind of potentially lethal pharmaceutical as from what I know of the situation if an easy way had been available my friend would now be dead.

Like I say this isn't a comment about Coproxamol, but about the attitude that people will kill themselves no matter what.

One cannot say that all who seriously want to succeed do and that those who didn't succeed didn't "really" want to die.

The point of whether or not someone did or did not "really" kill themselves is rather moot.

I can tell you that people who seriously want to kill themselves, and are physically able to, will try. There are those who make serious attempts and fail and those who make half-hearted attempts (in what some call "cries for help") and accidentally succeed. Unfortunately, we only have the words of those who tried and failed to go by, since those that succeeded didn't live to tell us just how serious their attempt was. I would argue for every person who has tried, failed, succeeded, or considered suicide, there are as many reasons that they did so.

There are those amongst us who, for any number of reasons, will try to kill themselves. Some of those number will try again, not because they are weak or choosing the "easy way out" but because, like the person who resorts to alcohol or drugs when they find life difficult to cope with, what I call suicidaholics.

For every reason, there are as many possibilities for "success" or "failure" (depending on your view of which is which). A person who seriously wants to die, may have their decision changed by something as simple as a caring touch. Others are too far into a pit of despair for any light to reach them.

Until you have been so deep into that same pit, you cannot possibly understand how hard it is to find your way out.

Just wanted to say thankyou for the balanced comments and to apologise if the original post freaked anyone (which it obviously did)
I posted that on the day my "Condition" was being particularly bad, and that was coupled with an incident at work which left me feeling that I was viewed as unable to do my job.

All in all - a very bad hair day that I occasionally get. I will of course ask Doctors for alternate solutions, but I still fear the "Just take these for a month" approach. Why? Simple really - if they do not work, then I find I am virtually housebound while the Docs "Assess" how efficent they are at relieving pain. Total immersion in pain for 24 hours is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, but changing drugs does exactly that to me.

Thanks for listening, and apologies for the intial post.

Hi Doc,

Thankyou for apologising. We all say things in anger and in extreme emotion that we wouldn't normally say. Or at least not in the same way anyway.

I do understand how you feel.

I went to get a repeat prescript from a GP once. Couldn't see my normal gp so saw this old cow. She point blank refused to give me my sleeping pills. I had been on them for 4 years, they cannot be just stopped, and I had run out. She said she didn't believe in me being on them so long and she wasn't going to give me them. She would do the rest of my pills but not those.

I nearly smacked her I was so angry. (I am not a violent person) in the end i raised the points I have just mentioned and she did them but told me never to ask her again for them. How unprofessional!! I left that consultation in such a state that she seriously compromised my health.

After reading your post I thought about that consultation with GP and how angry I was with her and realised that you were feeling similar to how I felt then if not worse, which was why I didn't yikes the post myself, as I could understand where the anger came from and knew you weren't being malicious.

Anyway - I do hope things work out for you.