Assistierte Suizide in München: angewendete Arzneistoffe und dokumentierte Komplikationen

This study investigated which drugs were used for assisted suicide (AS) and how often complications were documented.

The death certificates of all persons who died in Munich from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2023 were reviewed. For identified cases of AS the corresponding public prosecutor’s files, autopsy reports and toxicological reports were analyzed. Following the standardized data entry the data were anonymized and evaluated descriptively.

During the study period 60,357 people died and 77 AS were identified (0.1%). The drugs used for this purpose were thiopental (62 cases, 80.5%), chloroquine (13 cases, 16.8%) and phenobarbital (2 cases, 2.7%). The time between drug administration and death was a few minutes for thiopental and several hours for chloroquine. Complications, such as vomiting, aspiration, delayed onset of death when the pacemaker was in place were only documented for chloroquine cases.

For the first time data on drug use and documented complications in AS can be presented from a major German city. Chloroquine is still used by one euthanasia organization without continuous medical supervision during AS but in the authors’ professional opinion should no longer be used for this purpose due to the high complication rate. In contrast to other European countries, the orally administered and safely effective pentobarbital is not used in Germany. In the authors’ view, the legal basis should be created to enable the use of pentobarbital for AS in Germany as well.