Briquettes are out, hydrogen sulfide in as latest suicide method

“Generating poison gas. Don’t open.”
Such was the notice on the bathroom door, posted on March 27 by a 27-year-old Kobe man testing a new suicide method he’d found on the Internet.
The man’s parents were asleep on the second floor. Suddenly, relates Yomiuri Weekly (April 27), they were awakened by a strange smell. The odor led the 64-year-old father to the bathroom door, where he saw the notice. Frantically he kicked open the door. Immediately the gas overcame him.
His son, of course, never lived to know that in killing himself, he killed his father.
This is not an isolated case, as Yomiuri Weekly makes clear. A week later, a 23-year-old Osaka woman took her life in a similar manner. Three family members who attempted a rescue had to be hospitalized; fortunately they survived. On April 8 in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, a 31-year-old temp employee committed bathroom suicide, as did, on April 9, an 18-year-old girl who had just graduated from senior high school.
Internet sites purporting to facilitate an easy, painless end to it all gained national attention several years ago during a wave of suicides in locked cars. The deadly medium was fumes from charcoal briquettes. Hydrogen sulfide apparently offers a smoother passage. Its first known use was in March 2007, by a Takamatsu university student. Word spread through cyberspace. Suddenly briquettes were out and hydrogen sulfide was in.
Everyone knows the smell of hydrogen sulfide. Generally described as a “rotten egg” smell, it’s a familiar feature of many hot spring resorts. In moderate doses, it’s a heady odor, pleasantly unpleasant, suggestive of health-giving properties. In mild excess, it causes dizziness, headaches and clogging of the respiratory passages. In extreme excess, it is potentially fatal. In December 2005, four bathers at an Akita Prefecture outdoor hot spring died after breathing hydrogen sulfide fumes trapped in snow.
Heavier than air, hydrogen sulfide lingers close to the ground and is not easily dispersed. Rescuers who crouch to attend to stricken victims are particularly vulnerable. Prefectural police forces in Okayama and Shiga prefectures distributed gas masks to all their officers after two Okayama policemen were sickened in March trying unsuccessfully to save a 42-year-old male suicide. Elderly parents of young victims, beware, warns Yomiuri Weekly. The appropriate rescue procedure is not to struggle to drag the victim away but to fling open the windows and get all available fans going.
What makes hydrogen sulfide so tempting to would-be suicides, and such a nightmare for authorities trying to cope with the problem, is the ease with which the raw materials are obtainable. Toilet cleansers and bath salts are not controlled substances.
“We’ve been marketing our product for half a century,” says a spokesperson for one manufacturer. “It’s absolutely harmless by itself, and the container bears a label warning against mixing it with other cleaning products. The trouble is, if you amplify the warning by specifying which cleaning products not to mix it with, you’re in effect telling would-be suicides how to go about it.”
It’s a dreadful dilemma, concludes Yomiuri Weekly. “There are no obvious measures to take—and yet doing nothing is not an option.”

Latest 15 of 22 Total Comments Show All

LFRAgain at 02:15 PM JST - 21st April

Censoring websites or banning cleaning products isn't going to accomplish anything. They are merely symptoms to the greater problem of people wanting to kill themselves for whatever reason. Want to really address the problem? Give people who are pondering suicide more options regarding counseling free of judgment and negative stigma. Encourage families to spend more quality time with one another. Discard the notion that suicides (in Japan at any rate) are simple annoyances and inconveniences deserving of fines to the families of people who kill themselves, rather than the sad and preventable tragedy that they actually are.
VOR at 07:15 PM JST - 21st April

Its not enough that over 30,000 Japanese kill themselves each year, now they do it in a way that kills others in the process. This can't be good news for a country with a negative growth rate.
usaexpat at 11:32 PM JST - 21st April

For all those contemplating suicide here's some advice. Get out of the rat race and move to some small town especially if they offer free land. Give yourself a chance to live in a real community where neighbors help each other before you decide you've had it with the human race.
zzonkerr at 09:27 AM JST - 22nd April

Concur with usaexpat.

If you don't like how your life is going, change tracks; don't just stop the ride.
kokuryu at 05:53 AM JST - 23rd April

Amazing... I am surprised they dont use nitroglycerine and blow the whole house up while they are at it...

I agree with several other people here that they need to start addressing the "why" of suicides in Japan and come up with some way to combat it rather than making scapegoats out of everything. It seems to be the "way" to do things - ignore the real problem, find a scapegoat and hang the scapegoat out to dry. But I tell you what - eventually there are no more scapegoats to use, and then you have to think. I think using these bath salts is reaching that point - just like the company said - what can they do to prevent it - they have to list what not to mix it with to prevent accidents, but that does not stop those that are intent on taking their lives. Something else has to be done so they never reach that point in the first place - for all people all over.
openyoureyes at 12:18 PM JST - 23rd April

Nice... Publish the actual how-to right in your story.

Irresponsible journalism found right here.

No. Irresponsible journalism is when you don't report something because you think that people are too immature to handle adult information. Are we a society of six-year-olds?

I, for one, am insulted by the conduct of most media outlets in assuming I cannot analyze objective fact for myself.
rtrhead1 at 01:03 PM JST - 23rd April

"No. Irresponsible journalism is when you don't report something because you think that people are too immature to handle adult information. Are we a society of six-year-olds?

I, for one, am insulted by the conduct of most media outlets in assuming I cannot analyze objective fact for myself."

Yes, irresponsible journalism is when they put the how to and a step by step method for suicide when saying that people are mixing bathroom chemicals, or just household chemicals to make whatever gas is used to kill themselve. Common sense, assuming you didn't check that at the door when you got on the 1st amendment we need all the information ride, tells you that you don't need to know all the chemicals, and methods to make this gas in order to know what the story is about. I suggest if you feel "insulted" by people asking for responsibility, you go google the method for yourself. It's not about whether YOU can handle it or not, it's a matter of this is a highly read news site where kids or whomever can access it. We all know that kids don't always make the best choices. It's like saying hey, I don't need to lock up this gun, my kids are mature enough to know better than to play with it...
openyoureyes at 12:27 AM JST - 24th April

irresponsible journalism is when they put the how to and a step by step method for suicide when saying that people are mixing bathroom chemicals, or just household chemicals to make whatever gas is used to kill themselve.....

We all know that kids don't always make the best choices. It's like saying hey, I don't need to lock up this gun, my kids are mature enough to know better than to play with it...

First off, there is not a list of the chemicals in this article. "Bath salts and toilet cleanser" is pretty vague. Just reading that, I would have to google it to find out how to make it. And one could argue that knowing those things can be used to create hydrogen sulfide will lead to more parents being safer about where they keep them.

Secondly, my parents didn't lock up the guns in our house and I did know better than to play with them. Why? Because I was taught at a young age how to use and respect them, not "play" with them. Educate the kids. They aren't as stupid as you think. Keeping information from them out of fear will only make that fear more likely to come true.
rtrhead1 at 11:58 AM JST - 24th April

Yes YOU!!! There are always going to be some kids who are smart enough to handle it even though your parents weren't bright enough to lock them up anyways. Why would you leave guns unlocked in a house with kids? What is the purpose? Kids will be kids, regardless of how well educated they are. That's why they are called kids. They (on the average) are still VERY prone to this thing called peer pressure.

You know what, that information doesn't NEED to be put out there. It's not out of fear that they are keeping the info out of the public as much as possible. It's called common sense, which is something that some parents lack and therefore can't instill upon their children. Again, just because we can publish whatever we want, doesn't mean that we don't have some responsibility in saying hey, we really shouldn't put this out there. There is no reason for it.
openyoureyes at 03:22 AM JST - 25th April

You're right, it doesn't "NEED" to be out there. And you don't "NEED" to read it if it is out there.

It's out there for those of us who are interested in absorbing information. Common sense isn't omitting information based on the fear that some negative will come of it, common sense is not going and mixing up a batch of hydrogen sulfide after reading how on the internet. THAT'S common sense.

I should be shielded from that info because you can't teach your kids how to handle it? I think, instead, you should go find a more family-friendly web page to read. That's common sense. If you don't like how they report, don't read their reporting.

even though your parents weren't bright enough to lock them up anyways

My parents were bright enough to raise a kid who didn't need the safety patrol looking over his back at every turn. Trying to protect your kids from every perceived danger will only make them incapable of dealing with real danger and/or adversity when it comes their way. I fear for your kids, not because they might read about making hydrogen sulfide on the internet, but because you will not have prepared them to adequately handle that situation when it does occur.

I say good on japantoday for trusting me to be a responsible reader.
rtrhead1 at 11:58 AM JST - 25th April

Locking up a gun isn't a safety patrol, it's not thinking that your child is perfect. It's just stupid and to say otherwise is ridiculous to leave something like that where kids can get at it so easily. So, you're saying that they need all the information out there so that they can make the most informed decisions possible? Yeah, well, tell ya what, until I feel they are old enough to handle the information, I will explain and teach them about it. Not just throw it all at them as soon as they can read. That's our job as parents, to shield them to some degree from the world and teach them about it. I don't want the shoddy reporting from JT to do it for me. You know what, I'm done with you. It's like arguing with a Vegan about how the human is actually meant to eat meat... futile.
openyoureyes at 02:29 PM JST - 25th April

It's like arguing with a Vegan about how the human is actually meant to eat meat... futile.

Do you insult their parents too? It's no wonder they won't listen to you.

I don't want the shoddy reporting from JT to do it for me.

Again, you have a CHOICE in reading it or not. You act like they pull a clockwork orange and force you and your children to read. Have some accountability.

Do I want children to mix up hydrogen sulfide and kill themselves? No. I don't. But you're just like parents who complain about TV content and then let their children watch whatever programs happen to be on without monitoring them. If you feel your children cannot handle reading such things, which maybe they cannot, then it's your job to lock the proverbial guns away, which you advocate so highly, and stop them from reading them. You cannot depend upon others to do it for you.

All three children in my family miraculously grew up without killing ourselves with those uber-dangerous weapons. Judging by your point of view, your own family would not make it out of such a situation unscathed. So I absolutely understand your worries. But it's up to you to protect your kids. Not JT.
johnalex40 at 04:25 AM JST - 29th April

Hey. There is something bigger than just the suicide. They are killing themselves because they have nothing to live for. DUHHHHHH?! Family sucks. I'm ugly. No desire. What's the use!! No hope!

However, even though the author is providing ideas to the unfortunate, it is already in their minds and you can't stop them. There is nothing more to live for. So, they are going to not live here on this planet anymore.

What do you do? Try to give them hope. Change their focus.
Sarge at 11:09 PM JST - 30th April

romulous3 - "suiciders"

You been hanging around W? xD

I thought the most popular method of suicide was jumping in front of a train from any of the thousands of platforms still without safety barriers, or taking a walk in that forest near Fuji san...
JeromeInJapan at 01:07 AM JST - 1st May

What made me sad about all of this... the poor father died also trying to save his son...