James' World 2

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In post-World War II Britain, national records began to reveal a concerning trend. Deaths by suicide were rising in the war-battered nation, an increase that

would continue from the end of the war into the early 1960s. Then, in 1963, that trend mysteriously reversed. The graphs began to teeter downward. Experts puzzled over the reasons behind this drop in the suicide rate. Was it the birth of the Samaritans counseling services in 1953? Was it better psychiatric services offered under the National Health Service? But the reality turned out to be something entirely unexpected.

In the early 20th century, domestic gas that was used to warm British homes and cook people’s dinners was made almost entirely by heating coal, which created a gas mixture imbued with a hefty dose of carbon monoxide. Consequently, ingestion of carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas oven became the most common method of suicide. In the early 1950s, new and cheaper methods of gas production were brought in—with a carbon monoxide content hovering near zero.

Suicides by domestic gas poisoning in the UK began to fall rapidly, bringing down the national suicide rate. Between 1963 and 1970, deaths by suicide fell by a quarter. By 1975, suicides by gas poisoning had pretty much disappeared. The experts were not quite sure what to make of this; could it really be that simple? A 1976 paper on the topic pondered how “the removal of a single agent of self-destruction can have had such far-reaching consequences.”

This question gets to the heart of what’s called “means restriction”—reducing access to methods people use to take their lives. Across the world, means restriction has had a huge impact. Over the past three decades, suicide rates have slowly and steadily dropped; between 2000 and 2016, the global mortality rate from suicide dropped by about 33 percent. So while it may feel like the world is crumbling into a war-torn, authoritarian shit show ravaged by rising temperatures and politicians who stand idly by, we can take solace in knowing that we’ve become better at preventing suicides

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ILLUSTRATION: ANJALI NAIR; GETTY IMAGES

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