Now You Can't Even Kill Yourself On An Airplane

January 10, 2003

Right-to-die advocate Philip Nitschke was not allowed to fly through mansions of glory with his suicide machine earlier today (or tomorrow, or something), when Sydney customs officials confiscated the device before a U.S.-bound flight. Dr. Nitschke, the Ned Kelly to Jack Kevorkian's Butch Cassidy, was on his way to demo his fabtraption at a Hemlock Society meeting, and tried with considerably less success than Penn Jillette to start a security den ruckus ("I said, 'Well look, I can use my belt to hang myself. Are you going to take my belt too?'"). He vows to rebuild the machine—which pumps carbon monoxide through an aesthetically pleasant face mask—in time for the Hemlock gathering.