Tourists Trek to Mexico for 'Death in a Bottle'

July 31, 2008 — -- If Don Flounders waits for the asbestos-related mesothelioma that is ravaging his lungs to kill him, it will be a slow, painful death.

But one day -- maybe just weeks away and at the moment of his choosing -- the 78-year-old plans to drink a bitter mixture of alcohol and pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is used to euthanize pets.

Flounders told ABCNews.com that he flew halfway around the world from his native Australia to obtain the illegal drug in Mexico, which, like Switzerland, is fast becoming one of the recommended destinations for so-called death tourists.

The lethal drug, once widely available in the U.S. as a sleep aid and now used primarily in veterinary medicine, was an ingredient in the fatal cocktails that killed Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland in the 1960s.

Since 2001, the pro-euthanasia group Exit International has helped nearly 300 people -- mostly Australians, New Zealanders and a handful of Americans -- to find what is being called "death in a bottle" in pet pharmacies in Mexico.

Commonly known as Nembutal, this concentrated drug will put Flounders to sleep quickly and quietly, by taking his breath away.

"I had no trouble whatsoever purchasing the poison," said Flounders from his home near Melbourne. "It will be completely painless. Of the various means, this is the easiest and most reliable. It's a way of achieving a peaceful death."

He will take the Nembutal with a glassful of his "favorite tipple" -- gin. "You swig it down and I'll just close my eyes," he told ABCNews.com. "It's that rapid."

Exit International's Web site says the best places to obtain pentobarbital are "20-odd [United States-Mexico] border crossings, from Tijuana in California through to Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico."

The group provides information packets for these death tourists, with colorful photos of the packaging to help identify the drug among all the animal products for sale in these over-the-counter veterinary stores.