Edited by Margaret P Battin and Arthur G Lipman, New York, Pharmaceutical Products Press, 1996, 360 pages, US$36.00.

Drug Use in Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia provides a detailed and comprehensive examination of the issues surrounding end-of-life decision making, with a specific focus on the central role often played by death-hastening drugs. The papers in this volume address issues about the use of drugs in actively bringing about death, giving accounts of current practice, both legal and other than legal.

In the introduction to this volume Margaret Battin and Arthur Lipman point out that in the discussion of assisted suicide and euthanasia drugs are often an unrecognised centrepiece. For those seeking a peaceful and dignified assisted death, it is usually assumed that drugs will be the most appropriate means to this end. In many areas of the world policy is becoming more sympathetic to the tolerance of assisted suicide and euthanasia (this volume is particularly concerned with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act 1994). However, the ethical and pragmatic issues surrounding such practices …