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The family of a depressed New Zealand man who committed suicide in Sydney have expressed alarm over the ease with which he was able to order and import lethal drugs using information from a pro-voluntary euthanasia group.
The drug used is believed to be the same one involved in a police investigation in New Zealand that used an alcohol check point to speak to members of a pro-voluntary euthanasia meeting on Lower Hutt.
The man’s daughter says she thought the man would not have taken his life if the pro-voluntary euthanasia group had not provided information on how to obtain and use the drug.
the daughter told Kathryn Ryan on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme on Monday she was shocked at how easily and quickly he was able to obtain and import to the lethal drugs.
No questions were asked, and no checks carried out to see if he was suffering from a physical illness and the drug was delivered within days.
The man had made two previous attempts to end life. He was had been suffering from depression and recently had had a heart bypass.
The daughter said however, that he was in good health and that his long term depression had until recently been treated successfully.
After the second attempt to take his life, police confiscated the drug involved, but it was returned to him when he was discharged from hospital.
The same drug is believed to have been associated with numerous suicides in Australia which were not involved with deteriorating health or physical pain.
The police investigation in New Zealand followed on the death of Annemarie Treadwell, a Wellington woman who supported Maryan Street’s petition in support of assisted dying. Treadwell died on June 6 in Wellington, aged 77.
Some attempts to import fatal does of the drug into New Zealand from Mexico and China have be discovered by Customs and confiscated.
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