Sedative drugs

Most sedative drugs are not lethal, however, some can be reliably lethal when taken in combination with other drugs.

Sedatives are important because they can calm the person concerned.

Sedatives also induce sleep and make the time before loss of consciousness both shorter and more palatable.

In this Chapter we discuss a range of sedatives that bring about respiratory failure and death from cerebral hypoxia.

The drugs described in this section come from two classes:

The Barbiturates
The Opiates

Of the barbiturates, sodium pentobarbital (Nembutal) is the most useful.

Its most important role is as a stand-alone end of life drug.

The widespread use of Nembutal, as a single agent (eg. in Switzerland), has led to its reputation as the ‘holy grail’ of end of life drugs.

Indeed, Nembutal is of such significance that it is the subject of the best part of this Chapter.

The second class of lethal sedatives discussed in this Chapter are the opiates which include morphine, fentanyl and even heroin.

Although opiates have a reputation for being useful end of life drugs, there are several practical issues that affect their reliability, making them of little use.

Full details on the problems associated with their use are given later in this Chapter.

Nembutal & the Barbiturates

Barbiturates are drugs that are derivatives of barbituric acid which was first synthesized by Adolph von Bayer in 1864.

Although barbituric acid is physiologically inert, it was soon discovered that some of its derivatives were strong sedatives that induced sleep.

In excess, the barbiturates cause respiratory depression. Death occurs as a result of cerebral hypoxia.