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Michael J. Clarke, MA
Oxford University England

JAMA. 1988;260(17):2506.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

As Dr Sperry¹ shows, the phenomenon of cocaine suicide is an uncommon aspect of modern cocaine addiction. However, the cases reported in recent years are not the first examples of this.

In the British medical press, at least two cases of suspected suicide by hypodermic injection of cocaine were reported in the early part of the 20th century.^2,3 In one of these the deceased, a medical practitioner, was said to be "in the habit of injecting cocaine solution."² In addition, the mortality statistics of England and Wales show 28 suicides by cocaine prior to 1950.⁴ Although the proportion of these that involved cocaine addicts or the intravenous use of the drug cannot be discerned, we would expect that they do represent some such deaths. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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