Drugs That Induce Suicide?

Ironically, some forms of anti depressants (SSRIs) can be known to cause suicidal ideation. I can vouch for that. But it's not a surefire method - it'll depend on who your subject reacts - I suspect the same with anything you try to give them.

I third the anti-depressants.

Hallucinogens in a depressive personality could set something off (LSD, etc). I would imagine hallucinations in someone who feels like crap could be really bad. Mixing your standard depressants like alcohol, valium, etc. could also cause issues, since it would worsen the disease. But as others have said, there's no sure thing.

Also Chantix can cause/worsen depression, statins, birth control pills, etc. And hey, if you want to give the character malaria, Mefloquine causes psychiatric symptoms in over 50% of people who take it. Yes, my head is filled with useless trivia.

What if it's an antidepressant she has a history of suicidal ideation on, so she was taken off it? Would the person slipping it to her have access to that information if that was the case?

5thed antidepressants and all said before. Alternatively you can have her smoke a lot of pot.

CB1 antagonist Rimonabant - a treatment for obesity - was withdrawn from the market for suicidal ideation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_receptor_antagonist

Faerytale said:

I'm wondering if there's some kind of drug that's known for inducing suicidal thoughts and tendencies. The idea is that they're slipped to someone who's already depressed, thus tipping them over the edge and forcing them to commit suicide.

Maybe an antidepressant of some kind? It can be ingested multiple times, or just once, doesn't really matter. I'll work with it.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

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I am not a doctor but as an avid reader of murder mysteries it strikes me that it's such a chancy method of offing someone. I doubt you would be able to rely on antidepressants alone, even if you were able to slip them to the victim on a regular basis to keep the dosage up. (The pills might even help!)

Any drug other than antidepressants would presumably show up in an autopsy and need to be explained somehow...

amschilling said:

And hey, if you want to give the character malaria, Mefloquine causes psychiatric symptoms in over 50% of people who take it. Yes, my head is filled with useless trivia.

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Yup, this one has allegedly caused a couple of suicides. When I was in the Peace Corps anyone who had admitted to having any counselling for any reason in their past was not allowed on it (although it was the default for everyone else, under the name Lariam).
I wasn't on it, but some of my fellow PCVs were and it caused all kinds of mood changes, extremely vivid dreams and, in one guy, night terrors to the point where he would lash out and hurt his hands and feet against walls (or in one case against someone's face).

What I've heard about antidepressants and suicide is that they can sometimes lift the physical symptoms of depressed people before lifting the emotional symptoms.
So you end up with a space of several weeks in which you feel just as depressed and self loathing, but not as sick or unable to get out of bed. A bad combination.

However, as bad as the statistics are sometimes said to be for anti-depressants and suicide, I don't think there are any that would be a "sure bet" in making someone want to commit suicide... that's a rare side effect.
I like to think most would have the opposite effect.

Alcohol consumption and suicide (a medical article).

Acute alcohol use is associated with suicide. Suicide completers have high rates of positive blood alcohol. Intoxicated people are more likely to attempt suicide using more lethal methods... Middle-age and older men with alcohol dependence and mood disorders are at particularly high risk...High (33–69%) rates of positive blood alcohol concentrations have been found among suicide completers.

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Nortriptyline (tricyclic antidepressant)

Crack cocaine (in high school students)

There are a lot of possibilities, which have already been named, but I can't think of anything that automatically equals suicidal ideation--this is an uncertain variable.

Alcohol definitely does not go well with depression. I've known more than one person who goes from depressed to suicidal when drinking.

Lariam is a really interesting idea, but as has been said, it's not surefire. Most people do not experience extreme symptoms--but some do go totally batshit insane. I've been on it a number of times and only once experienced anything weird (intense nightmares, and who knows if that was the Lariam or not, as I go through periods of those things anyway).

There are a lot of drugs, for all sorts of medical conditions, that are reputed to cause suicidal thoughts in a very small number of people...Accutane (for severe/intractable acne), Tamiflu (for the flu), Strattera (for ADHD), etc. But of course, there are tons of people that take these drugs without such effects. (I was on Accutane more than once, and while there were a lot of unpleasant physical effects, I didn't experience any psychiatric problems.)

And of course you can play with any number of hallucinogens or recreational drugs etc. -- things that generally make people crazypants. Meth, LSD, bath salts, yanno. The classics.

Anti-depressants are popular.

But any mind altering drug, or chemical reaction drug (all of them) can influence someone towards suicide depending on the dosage.

Might I make a suggestion: Illegal drugs like Meth perhaps. Most illegal drugs are used, in place of antidepressants with a self-medicating mind.
I had a friend who screwed up his life, did meth and almost got himself killed several times. The last time, he tried to outrun a truck on the road, fell and tore up his back. The doctors thought that he was trying to kill himself. Gladly, he recovered and got his life back on track.

You can also have people who react badly with drugs. If they take a small dosage of ADs, they might overreact and just flare out, thus leading to suicide. (I would go this route, btw. But you need research)

A few years ago I was depressed and tried Amitryptylene.

On the fourth night I felt absolutely calm and lucid and convinced that I was absolutely worthless and should really, truly, actually die.

Rigging my car as a gas chamber, taking an overdose and switching on the engine before nodding off seemed like the only option. There was a freakish sense of inevitability about it and it seemed impossible or ridiculous to ring anyone up and talk to them even though I have plenty of people that I could call at three in the morning if I needed to.

I'm a psychiatric nurse too. We don't keep a close eye on depressed inpatients who have just started on antidepressants for nothing. They can be bloody dangerous.

amschilling said:

Also Chantix can cause/worsen depression, statins, birth control pills, etc.

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I lost two friends to suicide after they went on Chantix. They had no inclination towards suicide before going on the drug. I believe their families were part of a lawsuit against the company, but I wasn't close to the families so I don't know for sure.

Faerytale said:

Bahaa! I feel your pain. Did you know that Benjamin Franklin is actually a suspect in a serial murder case?

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Actually, he isn't. The suspect was the son of the lady he rented the house from. But Franklin did rent the house within the 20-30 year time period they can date the bones to.

Perhaps you can make it so that your character has tried the drug in question before of their own accord and it had a bad effect on them? So that way your badie knows what to use.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I have a friend who had severe suicidal thoughts while on the early "cocktail" for AIDS. When they changed the formula, he was fine. So, you might check to see what's been remove from the formula since 1995.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I also agree with SSRIs like Chantix and Paxil, but they're unreliable in terms of absolutely *causing* suicidal ideation. What about something like Abilify or another antipsychotic (or recreational psychotropic) that would induce a person to believe he or she is invincible?

lastlittlebird said:

What I've heard about antidepressants and suicide is that they can sometimes lift the physical symptoms of depressed people before lifting the emotional symptoms.
So you end up with a space of several weeks in which you feel just as depressed and self loathing, but not as sick or unable to get out of bed. A bad combination.

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The above is true, but with the added kicker that the experience of having extra energy while feeling too low to do anything with it can easily present as agitation, and that's a high risk symptom for suicide.

The problem is, if you divide everything into rough catagories, human experiences are either thoughts, feelings, actions or physical experiences (like headaches). Suidical ideas are thoughts, whereas depression is a state of altered emotions and negative thinking.

When asking about something to produce a specific thought, you might as well ask if a chemical could guarantee someone will choose to support a particular sports team, or guarantee someone will watch a certain tv program.

The best you can do is create a high risk state of mind; depression, agitation, paranoia, physical pain, and most of all, hopelessness, and create a high probability someone will consider it, but no definite way of knowing if the thought will go further.

Craig

With bipolars, whose emotions work on a sliding scale, any sort of depressant or downer can bring them down into depression and suicidal thoughts. It workd the same way with uppers bringing a person into a manic state.

Downers that effect bipolars can be alcohol, tranquilizers, marijuana, sleeping pills, and several other drugs.

And with antidepressants, the suicidal thoughts tend to be more common in teens and young adults, which is why doctors use a lot of caution in prescribing them. The drug, Lyrica, for fibromyalgia, also has suicidal thoughts as a side effect.

There's nothing that's GUARANTEED to cause suicidal tendencies.

While it can be a side effect of many drugs, especially anti depressenatns, in most cases it doesn't occur. (In other words, most people who take the drugs don't suffer from that side effect).

Would this work for you story: What if the character had a previous bad reaction to a specific med that caused suicidal tendencies. The problem was recognized, they were taken off the med, and everything was fine. But, the person who wants the character dead happens to know or somehow find out about this reaction and then secretly doses the character with the exact same medication. (Maybe they even found the character's old pills that hadn't been destroyed)

This way the person doing the poisoning would have a legit reason to believe that the dosing might likely cause a suicideal reaction. (And, even if medical experts might scoff, it's plausible enough to fly for most people).

Atypical Antipsychotics such as Seroquel have been known to encourage suicidal thoughts. They are used in the treatment of bipolar and schizophrenia. The problem with using anti-psychotics or anti-depressants is that, most of the time, they work like they're supposed to! They have to warn about suicidal thoughts because a relatively large percentage of people get them, but that relative percentage is something below 10%, I think. So the warnings are there, but most of the time they either do their job or don't work at all.

There is no magical suicide pill, and I would NOT use FDA approved drugs to try and cause suicide since they are usually extensively tested and if the percentage of people who wanted to commit suicide was higher than those who got a bit better, doctors wouldn't prescribe them often.

I think you're better going with a mild hallucinogen. Since this person is already depressed, it is entirely possible that this could trigger a "bad trip." It might increase their depressed thoughts until they believe they are truth. The thing about having a bad reaction, being taken off the medicine, then being slipped it again is a good one, too.

For me, Cymbalta, Zoloft and Paxil did it. Morphine as well. None were bad enough that I would follow through though, so it's definitely not reliable.

Jeff