World Suicide Prevention Day

CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS NEW ZEALAND
Established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights

9 September 2010
Media Release

World Suicide Prevention Day

Action is being called for today, a month after the Chief Coroner asked for more openness to suicide in New Zealand. 10 September marks World Suicide Prevention Day and according to the World Health Organisation, this amounts to a million people a year or 3,000 per day internationally.

In the past three years 540 people have taken their lives in New Zealand, 50 percent higher than the road toll, with youth statistics being the highest in the OECD countries. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has assisted a number of victims of suicide and mental health abuse. Director Steve Green said, “It was heartening to hear Prime Minister, John Key endorse the Chief Coroner’s call for wider responsible reporting of suicide. Making this official as part of World Suicide Prevention Day would be a huge step forward.”

Bereaved families of suicide have few rights and are not afforded government assistance, even though they are forced into dealing with such an enormous tragedy, funeral costs, Coroner’s Court, legal fees and assistance, etc. “There is still a huge stigma attached to suicide and the government could do a lot to turn that around with extending the services open to victims of crime,” said Mr Green.

Mental health is offered as a catch-all in suicide prevention but the Commission has actually found this to be a part of the problem. Psychotropic drugs are known to cause mood altering states in people and suicidality is a well documented and warned against side effect. “Drugs such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs are on a huge increase in the majority of age brackets and many of these are prescribed “off-label”,” Green said. “Doctors in New Zealand are prescribing these powerful drugs with potential life threatening effects, against Medsafe’s (our country’s drug regulator) recommendations.

In the United States there are Black Box Warnings on the packaging of these drugs warning the person prescribed that there is a potential for suicide, yet in New Zealand no such packaging or inserts exist. “This is another area where improvements can be made on suicide prevention,” Mr Green said.

The Commission has done extensive research in this area and has award winning documentaries made on the subject to help victims and their families to understand about an often confusing aspect of mental health.

Details of “Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging” and “Marketing of Madness: Are we All Insane?” can be found on their website: www.cchr.org.nz .

ENDS

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