Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Pro-euthanasia activists in Australia have manufactured more than 100 special plastic-bag suicide aids, but they are considering potential legal hurdles before distributing them to those who want to take their own lives.

Critics attacked the plans by campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke to facilitate death in a country where campaigners have for years been battling the scourge of suicide, especially among youngsters.

Based on a version called the "Exit Bag" made available by Canada's Right to Die Network, the Australian model will be made of thicker plastic, with a drawstring to close the device around the user's neck.

Although the bag's purpose is to make suicide easier, for legal reasons it will bear a warning that says placing it over one's head could kill.

Nitschke had planned to unveil his "Aussie Bag" at a press conference later this month, but said Wednesday that may have to be postponed after police raided his home and removed information, including details of those who have expressed interest in the bags.

The raid was ostensibly in connection with another matter - the suicide last May of Nancy Crick, a 69-year-old patient of his who claimed to be terminally ill, but whose body was found after death to be cancer-free.

Right to Life Australia president Margaret Tighe said Tuesday she was writing to the premiers of Australia's states, urging each state legislature to pass legislation banning the distribution of the suicide kits.

"It's time the whistle was blown on Dr. Nitschke," she said of the veteran activist, who is known for his computerized "death machine" and has promoted suicide pills and floating euthanasia clinics. He also runs euthanasia "workshops" around the country.

"Here he is going around promoting suicide, planning to make available these aids to suicide, yet we live in a country which is trying to prevent people from taking their own lives," Tighe said.

She was confident state lawmakers would support legislation to ban suicide aids, as she believed Nitschke had lost credibility of late because of the Nancy Crick affair.

Affect on youngsters queried

In Australia, an average of 14 in every 100,000 people commit suicide annually, according to World Health Organization figures for the late 1990s. This compares to 11.3 in every 100,000 in the United States and 7.4 in Britain.

The rate among young males is considerably higher. Among Australian men aged 15-24 it is 23.1, and for the 25-34 age group, the rate is 31.0.

For family physician David van Gend, it is unacceptable that Australian doctors and others are fighting to prevent young people in particular from contemplating suicide even as Nitschke is campaigning for it.

Whenever adults in society promoted suicide as an option, he said from Queensland state, younger members were taking note.

"Serious researchers of suicide are troubled by the message it sends to young people that suicide is a palatable way out of your troubles."

Van Gend, an anti-euthanasia campaigner who is also provides health services at a girls' boarding school, said depression is common among adolescents, some of whom come from a "nihilistic youth culture."

"It doesn't help when the elders of society to be publicizing the view that suicide is the way out."

In a phone interview Wednesday, Nitschke rejected what he said was an attempt by his opponents to "muddy the waters."

Elderly people wanting to end their lives and young people contemplating suicide fit very different profiles, he said.

According to Nitschke, of the more than 1,000 people who had attended his workshops, he would only describe around five as "people who shouldn't be there."

He planned to make the death bags available only to members of his voluntary euthanasia organization who had been "very carefully vetted."

Asked whether any criteria would be set as to minimum age or health status, Nitschke said this was still under consideration.

Of the 100 or so people who have already voiced interest in getting a bag, the average age was 70. He conceded that not all were terminally or even seriously ill, but said that for some it was a case of getting the device in case of future need.

"We're just trying to provide something practical for those who have no contacts and no money. Nembutal is a hard drug to get," he said of the lethal barbiturate favored by euthanasia advocates. It is not legally available in Australia, except to vets who use it to put down sick animals.

Nitschke said his group was considering ways of avoiding legal difficulties arising out of legislation which imposes strict penalties on anyone convicted of "advising, counseling or assisting" someone to take their own life.