Faced with increasing suicide rates, U.S. health professionals are bringing the once-taboo subject to the forefront.
They have to. For the first time, suicide is listed as a greater cause of death than by motor vehicle accidents.
In 2010, more than 38,000 Americans died from suicide compared to 34,000 from vehicle crashes, according to recently released findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By a large proportion, men more than women take their own lives. Guns are the preferred method, by a two-to-one margin.
Overdosing on over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol and prescription painkillers are on the rise.
Because some of these medications can be purchased in large quantities, mental health experts are proposing the medications be packaged in “blister packs,” and in small quantities.
The thinking goes that in the time it would take to push out the pills one by one, the would-be victim would have time to change his mind.
Britain took the bait.
And in the last five years deaths by suicide there have dropped by 43 percent.
In 1998, Britain changed the way it packages what we call Tylenol, requiring packages of 16 pills be individually sealed when sold over the counter and for those sold by prescription to be a maximum dosage of 32 pills, again individually sealed.
Two side benefits to the elaborate packaging is a decrease in accidental deaths by children and a sharp reduction in the need for liver transplants due to the high toxicity levels from prolonged abuse of acetaminophen.
MOST PEOPLE who commit suicide also want to live — just not right then.
And while making it more difficult to access a lethal dose of drugs is not the answer to their problems — depression is a serious issue that requires a multi-pronged approach — this speed bump could cause a drop in the number of suicides and accidental deaths.
Those facts make the hassle of opening such pills worth the effort.
— Susan Lynn
