Poison
Suicide can be committed by using fast-acting poisons, such as hydrogen cyanide, or substances which are known for their high levels of toxicity to humans. For example, most of the people of Jonestown, in northwestern Guyana, died when Jim Jones, the leader of a religious sect, organized a mass suicide by drinking a cocktail of diazepam and cyanide in 1978. Sufficient doses of some plants like the belladonna family, castor beans, Jatropha curcas and others, are also toxic. Poisoning through the means of toxic plants, is usually slower and is relatively painful.
Read more about this topic: Suicide Methods
Famous quotes containing the word poison:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1858–1924)
“You know the worst: your wills are fickle,
Your values blurred, your hearts impure
And your past life a ruined church—
But let your poison be your cure.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“In poison there is physic, and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)