The UK started requiring that Tylenol always be sold in blister packs instead of convenient-to-kill-yourself-with whole bottles of pills.

Results: "Suicidal deaths from paracetamol and salicylates were reduced by 22% (95% confidence interval 11% to 32%) in the year after the change in legislation on 16 September 1998, and this reduction persisted in the next two years. Liver unit admissions and liver transplants for paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity were reduced by around 30% in the four years after the legislation. Numbers of paracetamol and salicylate tablets in non-fatal overdoses were reduced in the three years after the legislation. Large overdoses were reduced by 20% (9% to 29%) for paracetamol and by 39% (14% to 57%) for salicylates in the second and third years after the legislation. Ibuprofen overdoses increased after the legislation, but with little or no effect on deaths."[1]

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC526120/

▲

akk0 3 days ago | parent [-]

I am familiar enough with the numbers that I am not necessarily surprised, but I still find it emotionally hard to grok that more than one in five would-be paracetamol suicide victims would be dissuaded by having to pop the pills out of a blister pack first.

▲

Dave3of5 3 days ago | parent [-]

Actually nowadays it's less that it's a problem to pop the pills out the booster pack and more that you are limited to the number you can buy.

So if you're going to off yourself you'd have to stock pile or roam around shops picking up.

There is a not insignificant number of suicides where people just say fck it I'll just kill myself but they don't want to go out to any real bother to do it i.e. they don't pre-plan it it's just spur of the moment. A bottle of kill yo self pills is pretty easy. Cupboard, swallow, drink down some water, die. But having to go out and buy a bunch over a few days or like drive around in your car just buying as many as you can. Like you'd have to look it up to check you're going to buy enough.

Back when that law came in when they didn't reduce the total amount you could buy at one time so if you went in and bought like 10 packs at the supermarket then the person at the till would be like ok this person's going to kill themselves so again that would require a bit of balls from the would be kill yo selfer.

I think you can buy a bottle of like 100 x 500mg for like $20 in the USA. That's like over 2 weeks swigging at the max amount. Like you don't need that many, 3-4 days is enough shouldn't be taking that much of the stuff.

	▲	akk0 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's a different matter that wasn't mentioned though. Where I live (continental Europe) I've never seen any kind of medication as a bottle, but I'm also not aware of there being an amount restriction on paracetamol, which where I grew up in in the Netherlands can be bought in any supermarket. Interestingly I was surprised to find that in France paracetamol can only be sold in pharmacies but hard liquor is available in supermarkets.