This is so fucked up...

[link to morallowground.com]

An elderly California woman has ignited heated controversy by selling mail-order suicide kits. According to the Daily Beast, Sharlotte Hydorn, age 91, personally assembles the kits and sells them for $60 through her company, the Gladd Group. Each kit contains a plastic bag, a tube and a book titled Final Exit, all packed into a white box adorned with a butterfly. Customers have to rent a helium tank; they place their head in the plastic bag and run a hose from the bag to the tank. Helium is lethal in its pure form.

Four months ago, the first confirmed suicide attributed to Hydorn’s kit was reported in Oregon when 29-year-old Nick Klonoski, who was not terminally ill but reportedly suffered from depression, was found dead in his bed with a plastic bag over his head and a Gladd Group helium-hood kit in the room.

Nick’s brother Zack was incensed. “In a society where so many people suffer from depression and other mental health disorders, this company has found their niche in the market by peddling death,” he testified at a state legislative hearing earlier this month. “This is analogous to putting a gun-vending machine next to a depression clinic. The Gladd company, so named as to avoid suspicion in case family members happen to sign for or come across the package, made $60 off my brother’s death.”

According to the Daily Beast, the Gladd Group’s estimated annual sales are $98,000, meaning that Hydorn sells 1,633 suicide kits each year.