The additive in question, recognized as an inorganic chemical compound, is frequently employed as a food preservative. However, when consumed in excessive quantities, it can prove fatal. An overdose of this additive obstructs the transportation of oxygen by the blood to the brain, causing the victim to lose consciousness and subsequently perish.
This lethal white powder was available for purchase on the Canadian chef's website, and a diverse range of people, spanning from the young to the elderly, utilized the product to bring about their own deaths.
From The Daily Mail:
You didn't need to venture on to the dark web to find the baleful products sold by Canadian chef Kenneth Law. They were accessible to anybody, on mundane-looking websites with names such as Escape Mode and Imtime Cuisine.
But the 'escape' they offered was permanent. Although the websites sold apparently innocuous products including gas masks, 'flow regulators' and rubber tubing, their most popular item was an inorganic chemical compound.
In very small amounts, it is used as a food additive and preservative. But, in larger quantities, the white powder is deadly. An overdose prevents blood from carrying oxygen to the brain. The effect is similar to carbon monoxide poisoning — the victim is rendered unconscious and quickly dies. Some experts say it can be horrifically painful but euthanasia supporters describe it as 'relatively peaceful'.
For Law and his troubled customers, that was precisely the point. For it is alleged almost everything he ghoulishly sold on the five websites he operated was designed to help people commit suicide. What couldn't be used for that purpose was there as window-dressing to put the authorities off the scent.
It didn't work, and the staggering extent of his death-dealing operation is now emerging. The 57-year-old Canadian and the products he sold have now been linked to 88 deaths in Britain and he may have shipped as many as 1,200 packages to 40 countries, say police.
Last weekend, the National Crime Agency said it was investigating potential crimes committed by Law after identifying 272 purchasers of his so-called 'suicide kits' in the UK. Police in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Italy are conducting their own investigations and he faces 14 charges of counselling or aiding suicide over deaths that occurred in his home province of Ontario. Canadian investigators are also looking into the collapse and subsequent death of a colleague at Toronto's five-star Fairmont Royal York hotel — where Law had been a cook since 2016.
Although Canada controversially allows doctors to assist people in killing themselves, anyone else who 'counsels or abets' a person to die by suicide faces a prison sentence of up to 14 years. The offence carries the same punishment in the UK.
Law has denied targeting buyers who wanted to kill themselves. 'I'm selling a legal product, OK. And what the person does with it, I have no control,' he said in May.
That may be technically accurate. But the former aerospace engineer, who police say started operating his online business in late 2020 after going bankrupt, reportedly told an undercover reporter that 'many, many, many, many' people had died after using products he'd sold them online. Law charged $59 (£47), not including postage, for a packet of the compound — labelled '99.999 percent pure' — used in most of the deaths.
Philip Nitschke, the Australian godfather of the euthanasia movement and former physician who has been dubbed 'Dr Death', told the Mail that Law's arrest had been a serious blow to his controversial 'right-to-die' cause.
He said 'hundreds' of supporters of Exit International, the organisation he founded and which claims to have a 47,000-strong membership, had bought from Law, although only a minority had actually killed themselves. With an average age of 75, he said, they mostly buy poisons and other suicide aids not to use immediately, but for 'peace of mind' that they can end their lives one day 'if things get bad'.
This man is undeniably a monstrous figure.
It is evident, considering his significant influence within the "suicide" community, that he must have been fully aware of the consequences of his actions.
He may attempt to uphold an innocent narrative for as long as he desires, but inevitably, the truth will catch up with him.
