# Instant Death poisons
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 10, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926 "2010-05-10T16:40:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/21 "2014-02-19T10:59:05Z")
[Etorphine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etorphine) is heavy shit - a synthetic morphine analog used to tranquilise large animals. It works fast and 10 mg will apparently send an African elephant to sleep - it would be fatal to humans at that dose and prob 100 times lower.
Its effects can be rapidly reversed, though, with super-potent opioid antagonists.
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### Author:  [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/22 "2014-02-19T12:47:16Z")
> [@psychonaut](#):
>
> I’m curious about this as well. When I was in high school, our chemistry teacher’s supply room had a big jar (maybe two or three litres) full of liquid nicotine. Even back then I had heard that it was a deadly poison, and that it could be absorbed through the skin, so I was wondering what purpose it would possibly have in a high school chemistry lab. Does anyone know?
Are you sure it wasn’t nicotinic acid? It can be used as a dehydrogenase, so that makes more sense for a chemistry lab. Otherwise, don’t know. Nicotine can be used as an insecticide, but it has been prohibited for decades since it’s pretty bad for other animals too.
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/23 "2014-02-19T12:55:36Z")
> [@MaverocK](#):
>
> How long does it take someone to die after drinking cyanide?
>
> And would it be a painful experience?
In 2009 Michael Marin burned his house down. Soon after, he was found guilty of arson, facing 7-21 years in prison. Moments after the verdict was read, he snuck a cyanide capsule into his mouth; he was dead a few minutes later.
two-click rule for the video:
[here’s the video from the verdict reading.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_3869woRAI)
At 0:29 you can see him sneak the capsule into his mouth. By 2:20 he exhibits the first outward symptoms of distress, which ramp up very quickly to severe distress, and by 2:45 he’s on the floor. There may have been a video cut at 2:11, not sure how much time was lost there.
Authorities found cyanide in his car and believe he made a capsule from it. I would guess a significant part of the delay between ingestion and symptoms in this case might be due to the time required to dissolve the gelatin capsule in his stomach, unless he actually managed to chew it - and I doubt he chewed it, considering he was trying to be very discreet about it.
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/24 "2014-02-19T13:59:16Z")
> [@Telperion](#):
>
> Are you sure it wasn’t nicotinic acid? It can be used as a dehydrogenase, so that makes more sense for a chemistry lab.
I’m pretty sure, though it was so long ago that I can’t be absolutely certain. Isn’t nicotinic acid a solid powder, though? The jar we saw definitely contained a brownish liquid. Judging from the label it was probably manufactured in the 1960s or 1970s. The chemistry teacher (who sadly passed away a few months ago) was known to be a bit eccentric, so I guess it’s possible he ordered the chemical on a whim, or for his own personal projects, without any educational use in mind, which explains why it had sat on the shelf, apparently unused all those years.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/25 "2014-02-19T16:15:05Z")
In _The Hospital_ (1971), the George C. Scott character, contemplating suicide, said that a big injection of potassium would quickly cause a fatal heart attack. I don’t know if that’s true, or if Paddy Chayefsky made it up.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/26 "2014-02-19T16:43:39Z")
it’s true.
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### Author:  [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/27 "2014-02-19T16:57:03Z")
It appears nicotine isn’t nearly as toxic as people have thought.
[Nicotine - a highly toxic drug?](http://www.ecigarette-politics.com/the-great-nicotine-myth.html)
> [@](#):
>
> ```
> The method used to arrive at the LD50 is based on a guess made more than a hundred years ago.
>
> ```
>
> There is no evidence whatsoever that a dose equivalent to the current LD50 has ever killed anyone.
> There is overwhelming evidence that doses of multiple times the LD50 have been survived.
> Suicide by ingestion of 1,500mg of nicotine is known to have failed, the only result being abdominal pain and vomiting.
> There is strong evidence that the lethal dose is 4mg plasma nicotine, and this equates to a 500mg - 1,000mg dose.
> Because ingestion of 1,500mg nicotine is not fatal, a lethal dose would need to be administered by injection or similar (it is impossible to deliberately inhale sufficient nicotine to cause death).
>
> Therefore it seems logical that a new LD50 for nicotine should be established at around 750mg, which is 12 times the current figure; and that this dosage must be administered intravenously or by some similar mechanism. There is no known fatal dose by ingestion for adults, because in the normal subject the result is copious vomiting that expels the material.
[How much nicotine kills a human? Tracing back the generally accepted lethal dose to dubious self-experiments in the nineteenth century](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-013-1127-0/fulltext.html)
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/28 "2014-02-19T16:57:09Z")
> [@AskNott](#):
>
> In _The Hospital_ (1971), the George C. Scott character, contemplating suicide, said that a big injection of potassium would quickly cause a fatal heart attack. I don’t know if that’s true, or if Paddy Chayefsky made it up.
No, a big shot of potassium would cause you to explode quite violently. There are lots of videos on YouTube (such as [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy1DC6Euqj4)) showing what happens when pure potassium comes in contact with water (or any liquid containing significant amounts of water, such as human blood).
A big shot of potassium _chloride_, on the other hand, will give you a fatal heart attack (sans explosion).
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### Author:  [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/29 "2014-02-19T16:58:12Z")
Prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) is fairly quick acting and it resembles a heart attack. The extremely dangerous Paladin Press survivalist guide _ **The Poor Man’s James Bond** _ tells people how to make it. However, the steps seems to be wrong, so attempting to do so could be fatal.
In the 1973 film classic, _ **The Mechanic** _, Charles Bronson (the protagonist) is killed by a poison called brucine. It also mimics a heart attack and it acts quickly. Because of its limited uses it’s almost impossible to obtain legally and possessing it might cause a person to have a lengthy chat with the authorities.
The major problem with using poisons of any type is that most people would survive or would survive long enough to tell others enough details for them to quickly ascertain that they have been poisoned. There’s also the bugger of accidentally poisoning oneself will attempting to do in another person.
Reference:
> **[Hydrogen cyanide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussic_acid)**
>
> 12.9 (in DMSO)
> Hydrogen cyanide, sometimes called prussic acid, is a chemical compound with the formula HCN and structural formula .mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su{display:inline-block;font-size:80%;line-height:1;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su\>span{display:block;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output sub.template-chem2-sub{font-size:80%;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output sup.template-chem2-sup{font-size:80%;vertical-align:0.65em}H−C≡N. It is a colorless, extreme...
> **[Brucine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brucine)**
>
> Brucine, is an alkaloid closely related to strychnine, most commonly found in the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. Brucine poisoning is rare, since it is usually ingested with strychnine, and strychnine is more toxic than brucine. In synthetic chemistry, it can be used as a tool for stereospecific chemical syntheses.
> Brucine is named from the genus Brucea, named after James Bruce who brought back Brucea antidysenterica from Ethiopia.
> Brucine was discovered in 1819 by Pelletier and Caventou in the bar...
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/30 "2014-02-19T21:30:07Z")
> [@psychonaut](#):
>
> A big shot of potassium _chloride_, on the other hand, will give you a fatal heart attack (sans explosion).
Isn’t it also excruciatingly painful?
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### Author:  [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/31 "2014-02-19T22:41:42Z")
Even a small IV drip of potassium chloride can be excruciatingly painful. Personal experience.
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### Author:  [@Errol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Errol)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/32 "2014-02-19T22:52:38Z")
> [@chorpler](#):
>
> Isn’t it also excruciatingly painful?
Found an interesting explanation of various poisons on this board. A little long but I found it worth reading.
Thanks to everyone for making this an informative thread. Turble’s link to current evaluations of the toxicity of nicotine was particularly interesting to me.
Errol
> [@](#):
>
> Xenopus 04-04-2000,
>
> The effects of cyanide on human tissues vary considerably depending upon the time frame or type of dose. If you ingest cyanide, the tissue effect is a combination of the ions interfering with oxygen transport OUTSIDE of the cells by poisoning hemoglobin, and also by affecting electron transport INSIDE the cell, specifically inside the mitochondria, by poisoning the cytochromes.
>
> But gaseous inhalation is supposed to work much quicker because it blocks the oxygen transport system fairly rapidly. This is why gaseous cyanide is such a killer, compared to the solid form (which still isn’t a bouquet of roses).
>
> But Sarin and other organo-phosphates are a heck of a lot cooler in their action. Most of these “nerve gasses” act by blocking an enzyme in your synapses that clean out a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine.
>
> The autonomic nervous system has been logically divided into two subsystems called the symapthetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The former for “fight or flight,” the latter for “rest and digest.” As it happens, the parasympathetic nervous system uses mostly cholinergic compounds (acetylcholine being the biggy). The sympathetic uses the catecholamines like epinephrine/adrenaline, if you can remembr back to that bitching heart stick in Pulp Fiction.
>
> The part of the nervous sytem that you can actively control by thought also uses acetylcholine, specifically in the neuro-muscular junctions, but we’ll get into that later.
>
> Anyway, a nerve works by puffing out a small amount of neurotransmitter into a small gap, it diffuses across the gap, and then the neurotransmitter is chnaged/destroyed/taken up so that it cannot signal again. The crux of this matter, though, is the speed at which this works. So I must digress somewhat.
>
> When your nerves send signals that change over time, such as “lift one ounce now, okay, now lift one-thousand ounces,” it doesn’t send MORE electricity down the nerve axon, it sends the same usual signal just a lot more often, basically just increasing the frequency of the signal. The gap, or synapse, has to clean itself out before another signal crosses so that the receiving cell can get an idea of the frequency of the incoming signal.
>
> The receiving cell or muscle can therefore say “a few pings per second, I’ll lift gently; a crapload of pings per second, and I’ll give it my all!” Our muscles usually respond to signals that occur around 50-60 Hz, or 50 to 60 times PER SECOND.
>
> Think about that. A puff of acetylcholine has to be spit out, travel across the gap, be received by receptors on the other cell, and excess aceycholine cleaned out of the gap in a time frame quicker than 20 milliseconds if it wants to detect another puff. The enzyme doing the cleaning for acetycholine (acetylcholine esterase) therefore works pretty damn quick.
>
> Now back to nerve gas. If you get a toxic dose of nerve-gas, it knocks out this “synapse scrubber,” and the receiving cell thinks that it is receiving a monstorous signal from the parasympathetic nervous system (essentially it is receiving a signals of infinite frequency). Since the parasympathetic system is responsible for down-regulating heart rate, a really high frequency signal can literally stop the heart. This can be achieved within 3 heartbeats after breathing in a gaseous nerve agent. Also, the sudden drop in blood pressure caused by acetylcholine overload (vasodilation, etc.) also causes immediate loss of consciousness.
>
> Therefore a good whiff of this stuff will kill you before you have a chance to hit the ground, though it really takes quite a while for the organs to shut down and your brain to die from lack of oxygen. It is like cutting the head of a bronotsaurus with a chainsaw. The back end of the bugger may keep walking and crapping for another hour or so, but baby, that is one dead dinosaur.
>
> Acetylcholine overdose is one of the fastest killers known. But this is only in the case of a gaseous dose. If the stuf gets smeared on the skin, it takes quite a bit longer to be effective, and the dose must be substantially larger.
>
> But I did mention the neuro-muscular junction, didn’t I?
>
> Well, if you ingest a sub-lethal dose of nerve agent, it will load into the control points for your muscles. Therefore a small signal to contract actually appears to be a huge signal to contract, since the frequency of the signal is altered.
>
> This is kind of cool when you do this to frogs with drugs like prostigmine, which are really pharmaceutical nerve gasses. The frog will just sit there and look at you, but if you make it hop, it goes fricking airborn like Michael Jordan, and contracts all its muscles extremely hard until it has used up all its muscular energy stores, then it flops over, exhausted. This is because a small hop signal gets amplified to a maximal hop signal, and the muscle never gets the signal to shut off, as there is still a lot of acetylcholine in the synapses, making the muscle think that it is still getting a real contract signal. It only stops when the muscle does not have enough energy to contract any longer (complete fatigue).
>
> Let it rest, then give it another poke to start it all off again.
>
> People with sub-lethal doses of nerve agent can also progress to this stage. If every muscle in your body fires as hard as it can, you’ll break quite a few bones, including probably your femurs, and suffer like a bitch the entire time.
>
> Maybe I should mention that the neurotrasmitters used for pain aren’t based on acetylcholine, mostly. They aren’t affected at all.
>
> But this affect is really useful for some people who have muscular problems. Lets say a patient has a disease that limits the amount of acetycholine released, or the muscle doesn’t react strongly to a normal dose of acetylcholine. By giving the patient a small dose of this nerve agent, it will amplify their muscle activity. Some patients that are normally bed ridden can use these drugs to actually get up and walk around.
>
> So what do you do to get rid of nerve gas poisoning, or guard against it? You use a drug from the belladona plant called atropine. It actually blocks acetylcholine from activiating cells, so it is a direct inhibitor of acetylcholine effects.
>
> As you probably surmised from where the drug comes from, it’s deadly as heck, too. But if you get some in you right before you get a dose of Sarin, you might live through it.
>
> But you’ll definitely feel like you just watched an Ally McBeal marathon. Every nerve you have is going to be raw and hurting.
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/33 "2014-02-19T23:12:11Z")
> [@coffeecat](#):
>
> Even a small IV drip of potassium chloride can be excruciatingly painful. Personal experience.
Ouch. I presume this was in a medical context – what did they do about the pain it caused? Just let you suffer?
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### Author:  [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/34 "2014-02-19T23:46:52Z")
I used to work for an old-school synthetic chemist, who was a fount of arcane trivia. I remember him telling me that cyanide has a distinctive taste, and that cigarette smoke somehow sensitized one to trace amounts. Yes, he recommended smoking a butt if you were working with cyanide at the bench.
True story.
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### Author:  [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/35 "2014-02-20T12:37:07Z")
> [@chorpler](#):
>
> Ouch. I presume this was in a medical context – what did they do about the pain it caused? Just let you suffer?
The nurse turned down the drip till it stopped hurting, apologized for torturing me (her words), and explained that some people have sensitive veins and they have no way of knowing who in advance.
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### Author:  [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/36 "2014-02-22T01:27:15Z")
Why isn’t a cyanide pill used instead of lethal injection on death row inmates?
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### Author:  [@Errol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Errol)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/37 "2014-02-22T01:53:17Z")
> [@Longshanks](#):
>
> Why isn’t a cyanide pill used instead of lethal injection on death row inmates?
I guessing they are going for a totally pain free death. As I recall the first application is to put the subject to sleep, don’t recall what the second dose is for but the final dose is to stop the heart.
Should remember all three after watching “You Don’t Know Jack” about Jack Kevorkian last night. 🙂
Errol
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### Author:  [@abbeytxs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abbeytxs)
#### Post date: [February 22, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-death-poisons/538926/38 "2014-02-22T02:37:10Z")
> [@coffeecat](#):
>
> The nurse turned down the drip till it stopped hurting, apologized for torturing me (her words), and explained that some people have sensitive veins and they have no way of knowing who in advance.
Off topic, but if you have to have a potassium drip again, ask them to add some sodium bicarb to it. Your veins will thank you.
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