Venting What evidence is needed to "trust" an OD

[wanttodie12345]

Pph, exit book, they all suggest combos of meds that are essentially overdoses. So how did they determine those combos would be effective enough to recommend if od is notoriously unpredictable and difficult?
Are opioid overdoses seen as more "reliable" because they happen more frequently than prescription overdoses? Could that be because they are used recreationally by a larger population than prescriptions? Are we lacking in case studies of other meds because there haven't been enough attempts, no one has bothered to publish? It's not ethical to test medications for fatal effects, and I'm not saying we should, but then are we just waiting to see if enough people become accidental test subjects before deciding, yeah that combo works

 

[Arahant]

Am no scientist, but I venture to guess they have estimated amounts needed based on LethalDose for 50% of cohort (LD50) data.
This is often from rodent studies, which then are converted to human equivalent dosages.
Perhaps other substances are added on top of that to tip the scales toward 100%.

They calculate the deadly dose for 50% because freaks exist.
Like in the case of opiates, 10% of the population are perfect non-responders, meaning you can jack them up with ungodly doses of opiates and they feel nothing and suffer no ill effects.
This makes 100% lethal dose impossible to calculate for many substances.
More: Am I correct in assuming you consider these questions because you would like to conclude what can 100% guarantee successful CTB?

 

[willitpass]

I'm not sure what method the PPH used to work up their methods, but in general medical and chemical knowledge can be used to build a pretty accurate idea of how a drug will work. By the time a drug hits the market after undergoing the respective clinical trialing, such as through the FDA in the US, there is going to be knowledge of what the drug works on in the body and the mechanism by which is does so. SSRIs, as a random example, work by preventing reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin at the synaptic junction between two neurons, allowing the serotonin to have extra time to take effect. Ideally this should increase the benefits of serotonin, but as with any medication can cause side effects as well. Every drug is studied like this.

So to know what drugs are likely to cause death, first you start with knowing how the drug works in the body and use physiology and anatomy to piece together how that could cause problems. Overdose on a beta blocker, for instance, can tank the blood pressure and drop the pulse to the point that the heart is no longer beating effectively enough to live. From there, as you mentioned, you cannot just have people take medication overdoses and see if they die. This is where case studies and statistics come in. Medical professionals love to investigate unique cases. If someone overdoses on a medication that hasn't been studied before due to its lack of commonality, there are good odds the doctor on the case will get permission to make it into a research paper. If it's a common drug to be overdosed on, then you'll find papers on statistical analysis as well as individual case studies.

Take all of this into account and you can put together a pretty good guess of what will kill someone. That is likely how the SN protocol was concocted, if I had to guess. Someone took the physiological process of SN on the human body, realized it would greatly impair oxygen transport, and no oxygen transport means tissue death. It also took into account that absorption occurs most quickly on an empty stomach. They likely then researched cases of accidental SN ingestion and studied the effects. After that they took into account the common side effects of this (nausea, anxiety, tachycardia, etc) and created a plan for how to counteract those symptoms for the least amount of discomfort. Once this plan rolled out and SN became popular, medical journals started pumping out articles analyzing the method from a hospital perspective, because as I said, medical professionals love digging into new cases.

Essentially all of this to say, this is just done through the scientific process. Hypothesize an effect, research it, look at case studies, and ultimately wait for someone to try it and study it after, since research cannot be done on humans. It's possible someone tried these on animal subjects, however I don't know if anyone was willing to go to those lengths or not.

 

[wanttodie12345]

Am no scientist, but I venture to guess they have estimated amounts needed based on LethalDose for 50% of cohort (LD50) data.
This is often from rodent studies, which then are converted to human equivalent dosages.
Perhaps other substances are added on top of that to tip the scales toward 100%.

They calculate the deadly dose for 50% because freaks exist.
Like in the case of opiates, 10% of the population are perfect non-responders, meaning you can jack them up with ungodly doses of opiates and they feel nothing and suffer no ill effects.
This makes 100% lethal dose impossible to calculate for many substances.
More: Am I correct in assuming you consider these questions because you would like to conclude what can 100% guarantee successful CTB?

Successful and peaceful ideally, yes

 

[Arahant]

Successful and peaceful ideally, yes

The proverbial gold standard for that around this site is considered to be Nembutal (PentoBarbitone).
That is what vets use for a peaceful death. I think it's also used in medically assisted suicide.
I think Nitrogen suffocation is a close second, but I could be wrong.
Various guides will provide you more elaborate information than I can.

 

[wanttodie12345]

The proverbial gold standard for that around this site is considered to be Nembutal (PentoBarbitone).
That is what vets use for a peaceful death. I think it's also used in medically assisted suicide.
I think Nitrogen suffocation is a close second, but I could be wrong.
Various guides will provide you more elaborate information than I can.

Yes. Unfortunately, I don't think either of those methods is accessible to me. N seems incredibly hard to get, and my health and living circumstances prevent me from many of the other options.