News archive
10 June 2007
The Peaceful Pill Handbook banned
The Peaceful Pill Handbook is classified as objectionable
The publication is a well-intentioned book that advocates law reform and gives advice to enable the seriously ill and elderly "to make carefully considered and fully informed decisions about their own life, and death." This advice includes comparison of various means of suicide, which is not illegal. The book argues that the law should be changed to permit seriously ill and elderly people access to pentobarbital, a drug the authors consider to be the most dignified and peaceful means of suicide. When advocating law reform or a change in social perception, it is often necessary to describe the benefits of the thing or practice that is outlawed or stigmatised to get the law reformed or the perception changed. Although these parts of the book deal extensively with suicide methods, an "infliction of serious physical harm" in terms of s3(3)(a)(i), they are written in a manner that gives factual advice on how to structure one’s activities to be lawful, and that supports the advocacy of law reform. Although reasonably instructional in tone, they do not instruct in the commission of criminal activity. In the hands of its intended readers, these parts of the book are unlikely to be injurious to the public good.
The book does not however appear to distinguish between, on one hand, advocacy of law reform and offering advice on how to structure one’s activities so that they will be within the law, and on the other hand, offering instruction in how to break the law and conceal the fact. The former does not promote or encourage criminal activity; the latter does. Parts of the book go beyond advocacy and advice and give instruction in how to get away with committing crime, thereby promoting or encouraging criminal acts in terms of s3(3)(d). Specifically, these parts of the book instruct in how to smuggle Nembutal into the country without detection, how to manufacture pentobarbital in contravention of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, how to manufacture and use cyanide in violation of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997 and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, and how to conceal one’s involvement with the commission of a suicide, exposing one to prosecution under ss113, 116 and 179 of the Crimes Act 1961. The delivery of most of this information by means of first-person testimonials, and the tone of advocacy throughout the publication, contribute to the promotion and encouragement of the criminal activities the book describes in such detail.
The public good is unlikely to be injured by those parts of the book that advocate law reform and offer advice. However, when these parts of the book are considered with the parts that give instruction on how to commit and conceal criminal activity, it becomes apparent that the book’s availability is likely to injure the public good. Likely injury to the public good lies in the fact that, while the authors do not directly incite or counsel readers to commit suicide by the means described, the detailed and practical information is presented in a manner which may reasonably be expected to be acted upon by some readers. The publication’s promotion and encouragement of criminal activities in the pursuit of a peaceful and dignified death increases the likelihood that those crimes will be committed by some readers.
The Classification Office has considered the effects of the Bill of Rights on the application of the classification criteria elsewhere in these reasons. The classification of this publication interferes with the freedom of expression, but this is a reasonable limitation on those freedoms which is demonstrably justified in accordance with sections 5 and 6 of the NZBR Act and reflects the concern of a free and democratic society to limit the availability of publications that promote or encourage criminal acts.
To go to the classification decision click here.
Updated 20.11.2007