WASHINGTON – The FDA has never approved the compounded drug cocktails used in assisted suicide, yet practitioners in states where the practice is legal continue to prescribe these experimental compounds at lethal doses. Critics argue this amounts to state-sanctioned experimentation on vulnerable patients, with complication rates that would be unacceptable in any other medical field.
Gavin Oxley, media relations manager at Americans United for Life, contends that the drug combinations are unpredictable and often cause prolonged suffering. The Canadian Association of Medical Aid in Dying Assessors and Providers has noted that patients frequently experience absorption issues such as nausea, vomiting, or difficulty swallowing, which can dilute the drugs' efficacy and lead to failed attempts or regained consciousness.
In Oregon, the first state to legalize assisted suicide, complication rates have reached 14.8 percent. Oxley points out that such a rate would be deemed intolerable in standard medical practice, but lawmakers and practitioners appear to accept it because patients have already expressed a wish to die.
New drug cocktails are introduced every few years, as documented in Oregon's annual Death with Dignity Act data summary. In 2025, a new combination of diazepam, digoxin, hydromorphone, amitriptyline, and phenobarbital was introduced. While the Oregon Health Authority touts it as the fastest-acting yet, the longest recorded death took 26 hours. Two patients regained consciousness after ingestion, and for 70 percent of all assisted suicide deaths in 2025, the complication status was unknown to the prescriber, despite state law requiring reporting.
The lack of follow-up is exacerbated by the practice of sending assisted suicide drugs across state lines, with telemedicine and doctor-shopping in legal jurisdictions exposing residents of states that have banned the practice. As of early 2026, 13 states and the District of Columbia have legalized assisted suicide, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul signing a bill that will take effect later this year.
Oxley argues that Congress can use its constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause to make it a federal crime to prescribe or traffic assisted suicide drugs in interstate commerce. This would protect states that have not legalized the practice from what he calls "experimental and predatory assisted suicide laws."
Other political developments this year include Virginia Democrats taking their redistricting fight to the Supreme Court after a state court blocked their map, and Senator Kennedy pushing a bill to put suicide hotline numbers on student IDs. Meanwhile, a new book argues that Democrats have abandoned their own voters in red states.
Oxley concludes that state-sanctioned suicide has gone unchecked for too long, and it is time to end the experimentation and stop the assisted suicide industry. "For far too long, state-sanctioned suicide has gone unchecked, and vulnerable patients have paid the price," he said. "It is time to end the experimentation and finally send the assisted suicide industry packing."
