Interview: ETHEL ADELMAN

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Alan: We thought he was being original.

Q. What did the toxicologist's report show?

Alan: He took Seconal -- a lethal dose, far above a therapeutic dose -- phenobarbital, codeine and alcohol. He was legally drunk. The book tells you to chase the pills down with vodka, and we found an open bottle of vodka in his apartment.

Phenobarbital, Seconal -- I understood those because they're both barbiturates and powerful sleeping pills. But I couldn't understand why codeine. Then I found on page 110 that Jean Humphry, his first wife, died in 1975 within 50 minutes by taking a combination of Seconal and codeine. There it was. There's where Adrian got the idea.

Ethel: The book also tells you to take a Dramamine first so that you don't become nauseated and throw up. He took that too.

Q. Any other links?

Alan: The book instructs you how to trick the doctor to get drugs strong enough for suicide. Adrian went to three doctors. We've reconstructed this through his bills.

Ethel: Our family doctor told us that he gave him 30 Seconals. He couldn't believe that this boy was depressed. Adrian said, "I have insomnia." He lied. He fooled a lot of people.

Alan: The book also tells you to put a plastic bag over your head after you take the pills, and he did this as well.

Q. Could you say exactly what happened over Labor Day weekend?

Alan: On Sunday night, Sept. 1, my sister and her husband went to Adrian's apartment, to bring him to our place for dinner. They found him lying in his hallway with a plastic bag over his head.

The police went through the apartment, found his prescription drugs and found a copy of Final Exit in his raincoat pocket in the closet.

Q. Have you communicated your concern to Derek Humphry?

Alan: No, I have not.

Q. Why not?

Alan: I honestly don't think he cares. He is indifferent to who might read it.

Q. Do you think assisted suicide or euthanasia is ever acceptable?

Alan: Under certain circumstances. If people are terminally ill, yes, they have a right to do it. But I think if they're determined to make that decision, they can go out and do the research on their own. They don't need the Hemlock Society.

Ethel: I don't know. I feel that if you're racked with pain, I don't think you're in your right mind to make a decision like this, to take your own life. When people become depressed, they can't always tell right from wrong. This was not the same Adrian anymore.

Alan: It is possible that you're no longer competent enough to make that kind of decision. But my view regarding the right of a terminally ill person to commit suicide does not change my belief that publishing a book like this is reckless and negligent. The dangerous thing about the book is that it falls into the hands of teenagers and clinically depressed people.

Q. Would you, if you had had the power, have prohibited publication?

Alan: Absolutely. Or regulated it in some way.

Q. How do you square that with the First Amendment?

Alan: Since I think the book is dangerous, I think this information that he so carefully researched and packaged could have been communicated, distributed, in a different way.