inbonobo:

I can’t believe how many people died taking this crap.. It seemed to provide a supposedly safe way to flirt with death.

Secobarbital sodium (marketed by Eli Lilly and Company, and subsequently by other companies as described below, under the brand name Seconal) is a barbiturate derivative drug that was patented in 1934 in the US. It possesses anaesthetic, anticonvulsant, sedative and hypnotic properties. In the United Kingdom, it was known as Quinalbarbitone.

Secobarbital began to be widely misused in the 1960s and 1970s, although with the advent of benzodiazepines, it has become less commonly used. Secobarbital has acquired many nicknames, the most common being reds, “red devils”, or “red dillies” (it was originally packaged in red capsules). Another common nickname is “seccies”. Another common nickname is “red hearts” according to the Wegman’s School of Pharmacy curriculum. A less common nickname is “dolls”; this was partly responsible for the title of Jacqueline Susann’s novel Valley of the Dolls, whose main characters use secobarbital and other such drugs.

Famous deaths related to use

• Judy Garland was found dead in her bathroom by her husband Mickey Deans on June 22, 1969. The stated exact cause of death by coroner Gavin Thurston was accidental overdose of barbiturates; her blood contained the equivalent of 10 Seconal 100 mg capsules.^[3]
• Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, died at his house in London on 27 August 1967. The stated exact cause of death by coroner Gavin Thurston was accidental overdose of barbiturates
• Tennessee Williams was reported to have died of “acute Seconal intolerance” at the Hotel Elysee in New York City in 1983. Reports at the time indicated he had choked on a bottle cap but later reports indicated the Seconal connection.
• Jimi Hendrix, guitarist and vocalist, died while at girlfriend’s Monika Dannemann flat in London. The coroner Gavin Thurston accepted that he had probably taken nine of his girlfriend’s tablets, after which he vomited and choked to death due to the tablets. He gave an open verdict (not enough evidence to say why he took so many tablets). He died September 18, 1970 aged 27.
• Alan Wilson, vocalist and founding member of Canned Heat, was found dead at age 27 in 1970, from a self-induced overdose of Seconal.
• Dorothy Kilgallen, an American journalist and television game show panelist, was found dead on November 8, 1965, having apparently succumbed to a fatal combination of alcohol and Seconal, possibly concurrent with a heart attack.
• Dinah Washington, blues, R&B and jazz singer, was found dead at age 39 in 1963, from a lethal combination of secobarbital andamobarbital.
• Beverly Kenney (January 29, 1932, Harrison, New Jersey – April 13, 1960, New York City) was an American jazz singer. Kenney committed suicide through a combination of alcohol and Seconal. She was 28.
• Carole Landis was a popular actress of the 1940s who committed suicide on an overdose of Seconal in her Pacific Palisades, California home on July 5, 1948. She was 29.
• Lupe Vélez, a Mexican-born film actress, committed suicide in 1944 with an overdose of Seconal. The story (which gained notoriety when described in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon and inspired Andy Warhol’s film Lupe) that she died with her head jammed down the lavatory after slipping on vomit, is an urban legend.
• Aimee Semple McPherson a Canadian-born evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s was found in a hotel room unconscious on September 26, 1944 after taking Seconal.
• Leila Pahlavi (27 March 1970 – 10 June 2001) Leila Pahlavi was the youngest daughter of the Late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlaviand his wife Empress Farah. On Sunday 10 June 2001, Leila was found dead in her room in the Leonard Hotel in London just before 19:30 BST by her doctor. She was found to have more than five times the lethal dose of secobarbital in her system, along with a nonlethal amount of cocaine.
• Charles Boyer (28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. On 26 August 1978, two days after his wife died from cancer, and two days before his own 79th birthday, Boyer committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal while at a friend’s home in Scottsdale.
• Poet Alejandra Pizarnik died in Buenos Aires of a self-induced overdose of Seconal.
• Singer Phyllis Hyman (July 6, 1949 – June 30, 1995) committed suicide by overdosing on pentobarbital and secobarbital in her New York City apartment.

Use in physician aid in dying

Secobarbital overdose was the most common method of implementing physician assisted suicide in Oregon for many years. Subsequently, pentobarbital has dominated in Oregon PAD. Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited previously experienced various issues in their attempts to produce 100 mg secobarbital capsules. Currently, Marathon Pharmaceuticals is the sole marketer of the drug in the United States, although the drug remains manufactured by Ohm Laboratories.

It is a component in the veterinary drug Somulose, used for euthanasia of horses and cattle. (via wikipedia, obviously)

(via fatbettyfrancis)