Drugstores to remove sulfur product in response to suicide attempts

Saturday 10th May, 04:53 AM JST

TOKYO —

An industry association for drugstore chains decided Friday to urge its member stores to remove from their shelves a sulfur-containing product believed to have been used in gas suicide attempts. The product in question is sold as an over-the-counter medicine and is cited on the Internet as an agent to generate hydrogen sulfide gas.

The Japan Association of Chain Drug Stores, which counted about 190 members including industry leader Matsumotokiyoshi Holdings Co as of March 31, issued a notice to its members. The notice also alerts shops to be careful when selling an acid detergent that is used with the sulfur product to generate the gas.

8 Comments

PuffinMuffin at 12:07 PM JST - 10th May

"The product in question is sold as an over-the-counter medicine and is cited on the Internet as an agent to generate hydrogen sulfide gas."

Why would anyone want that? Ah wait, we all know why now. Good move by the drugstores but it may not stop people from offing themselves.
LFRAgain at 12:36 PM JST - 10th May

Yeah, but it'll help prevent the people who want to off themselves from taking their neighbors with them.

Kudos to this industry group for being proactive.
Coligny at 12:53 PM JST - 10th May

Wait... kudo for waiting up to 2008 to remove product that seems to be excessively dangerous for no good reason and not properly labelled ?

Because 1- making so easily lethal gas with household products seems out of a Mc Guyver episode, hopefully, japanese people have as little knowledge of chemistry as they have in english.

And 2- if it was properly labelled knowledge of its use a darwinian accelerator would have been much more widespread since quite some time. Here it's the TV/internet buzz that nade it popular...
romulus3 at 02:57 PM JST - 10th May

oh well, there is always the subway, condo plummet, hose on the exhaust, sleeping pills etc..now if only the government could take a decisive lead as the drug store chain has, as with other posters here...kudos to them!
Alphaape at 04:07 PM JST - 10th May

Let's not forget the golden classics like a knife to the abdomen, maybe then all the knife shops I have seen around here would stop selling them.

I think the gov't needs to do like the US did back in the 80's with Nacy Reagan's "Just Say No to Drugs" to the kids. Did it work, it could be debated that it did and didn't. But what it did was bring it to the forefront on everyone's mind, and let people in America know it really was a problem. Sure slogans probably will not work, but at least it would be an attempt by the gov't to admit that there is a problem, and not try to hide these incidents as anomolies in an otherwise no problem society.

Face the issue, and try to offer solutions and de-glorify this suicide belief that is prevelant.
VOR at 04:55 PM JST - 10th May

oh my aching balls, i was just getting used to the trains running on time.

this country needs some serious help in curtailing suicides. at least set some goals, like perhaps a reduction of 10% per year. This roughly translates to saving the lives of 7-8 people per day.

In a culture in which its nearly impossible for anyone to actually say whats on their mind I highly suspect saving even this many people per day is a mighty tall order.
smithinjapan at 10:52 PM JST - 10th May

VOR: I agree with you... but lest we forget the government has been setting 'reduction goals' for the past year or so at least, with the rate only ballooning. ACTION needs to be taken somehow, where this government seems to only ever be able to say, "We've got a problem; we're going to let the prefectures deal with it," and the prefectures saying, "we're waiting for guidelines from the government," and in the meantime everyone pretending that simply saying there's a problem is half the battle.

Addressing a problem without any action is just wishful thinking. Removing the product from shelves really isn't going to do anything at all if the mentality behind the suicides isn't addressed at all. Reduce workloads and work hours; stop kids from having to be in educational facilities from dawn to dusk and eliminate the pointless entrance exams; support the average family through care and support packages, instead of guilting everyone into believing it's their fault for the declining birthrate while urging young women to be 'baby making machines' and cutting their tax breaks and passing them off to corporations; address depression and anxiety disorders for the everyday rate in which they occur and exist, instead of hiding them in the closet and calling it disease.

That ought to be a start, but my guess is all we're going to see is more of the same; people saying 'a big problem exists' and just dancing around it without doing a thing.
VOR at 11:02 AM JST - 11th May

SMITH: Good catch, I should have been clearer and called out the J-government merely paying lip service to the problem.

I'm not sure what approaches the J-gov has implemented to resolve the problem, whatever they are doing isn't working or needs more time.

Suicide within Japanese culture seems to be an acceptable solution to dealing with failure and isolation. It is this deeply rooted mindset that needs to be changed. Someone smarter than me will hopefully figure that one out. One approach they could take immediately is a public education campaign to teach its citizens how to recognize the signs of suicide and where to turn for help. The "shoganai" attitude ain't working.