Support group or Suicide DIY?

[khaosworks]

Suicide 101: Lessons Before Dying

Type "suicide" into an Internet search engine, and among the sites advertising therapy, hotlines and antidepressants, you'll find a handful of pages where suicidal strangers counsel each other on the best way to die.

The largest site, called alt.suicide.holiday, or ASH, combines a public newsgroup, chat rooms and guide files instructing visitors on how to kill themselves using everything from aspirin to rat poison.

Local news reports have so far linked ASH to three suicides. Wired News was able to confirm another seven deaths associated with the site in interviews with relatives over the last month. In addition, ASH itself lists another 14 suicides as "success stories," but those could not be verified because of the anonymous screen names used by the people who allegedly died.

Evidence exists that at least one person downloaded carbon monoxide poisoning instructions from the site before killing herself.