[coolestuk]

The UK law is stupid. My sister took her life using paracetamol. She just drove to 3 different pharmacies and bought the max amount at each. She also bought sleeping tablets so that the pain of her dying liver would not wake her.

A few days before this, my family had tried to have her sectioned as mentally ill (she was suicidal from post-natal depression). They psychiatrists kept her in for observation for 48 hours, then released her. 24 hours later she was dead, and her child an orphan.

All the law did was slow her down for maybe 15 minutes in her suicide attempt.

[salvadors]

No law can prevent all such tragedies. But failing to have prevented this one doesn't make the law stupid, or worthless. It does successfully prevent other cases. What happened with your sister is certainly horrible, but you can't generalise from that to every case.

[vacri]

Would you also say murder laws are stupid because they only reduce the incidence of murder, not eliminate it? Of course these laws aren't going to stop a planned suicide, but they will prevent spur-of-the-moment ones that use this method, of which there are plenty. I'm sorry for your loss, but the answer isn't railing against measures which may help others.

[switch007]

That's awfully tragic and I'm very sorry for your loss. :(