'Dr Death' to hold suicide talks
Updated on 08 October 2008
A controversial euthanasia expert dubbed "Dr Death" is holding his first DIY suicide workshops in the UK.
Dr Philip Nitschke said he would show participants his DIY suicide kit and also take advantage of the UK's "liberal publishing laws" to launch an online version of his book The Peaceful Pill eHandbook before the first workshop in London on Monday.
His second public meeting and workshop is being held in Bournemouth, Dorset, three days later because of its large number of elderly residents.
Dr Nitschke, who founded the right-to-die organisation Exit International, said: "We thought we would run one in London and one where there are significant numbers of elderly people because that's our target audience."
The 61-year-old from Darwin, Australia, added: "We are also coming over to the UK to take advantage of your liberal laws on publication.
"My book is banned here in Australia so we will be looking at launching an internet version in London. We cannot do that legally in Australia, but we can do it in England."
He was the first doctor in the world to administer lethal injections to end four patients' lives after voluntary euthanasia was made legal in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1996.
He used a "Deliverance Machine" to aid their suicides which has since gone on display in the British Science Museum.
A laptop computer programme built into the machine asked the patients a series of questions and after they pressed the same button three times it gave them a lethal dose of the barbiturate drug Nembutal.
The Australian federal government overturned the law nine months later, but Dr Nitschke has continued to advise people on ending their lives.
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