If you have to help a person die, say nothing. Let the police do their own sleuthing.

Providing information about how persons may end their life is not a crime, at least in the United States, or I would have spent many years behind bars!

Touching the person in the act of helping him or her to die is where criminal liability is possible. Giving an injection, holding the cup to the mouth, helping to put a plastic bag over the head and securing it – all are actions that prosecutors could use to enforce existing laws against assistance in dying.

One of the most valuable services that hospice care offers is respite from the continual burden of care for the family member or members looking after a dying person. A hospice may be able to provide someone for several days, nights, or a week, to enable a stressed-out caregiver to take a break.

More than 40 percent of the suicides among chemists, both men and women, occur from swallowing cyanide, according to a report in the New York Times (9/4/87).

First, sodium thiopental is used to put the condemned individual to sleep; then follows Pavulon, a muscle relaxant similar to the South American poison curare, together with potassium chloride to stop the heart.

The key to the effectiveness of cyanide as a killer is the water. This is borne out by evidence in textbooks that flocks of sheep that have eaten plants containing cyanide do not die so long as they do not drink. If the animals are near water, the plants are fatal.

When choosing to die on a mountain or similar lonely place, it is considerate to leave a note saying where your body can be found. Otherwise, people might risk their lives and expend considerable resources hunting in dangerous places for you.

Not so bizarre, and a method for which I have respect, is freezing to death on a mountain. It takes a certain sort of person to want to die this way: having a love of and knowledge of mountains, determination, and the enduring courage to carry it off.