A Colorado father shared his despair when he discovered the truth about a $13 drug his teenage son bought that he thought was just a sports supplement.
Bruce Brown said the odorless, yellow-white powder was delivered to his Evergreen home in late November 2022 in a standard UPS package addressed to his 17-year-old son Bennett, a star soccer player.
He thought it was just a sports supplement and texted his son that night to ask what it was, but never got a response. according to USA Today.
In reality, it was sodium nitrite, a dangerous chemical that is becoming increasingly popular among young people to commit suicide. Bennett did so the next day.
“They sent it to him within two days and it sold for about $13,” Bruce said. “That was the price of my son’s life.”
Bennett Brown, 17, ordered sodium nitrite online in November 2022, which he used to commit suicide
Bruce, a former district attorney, explained that his son’s mental health began to suffer during the COVID pandemic, when he was unable to physically attend school and became isolated from his peers.
He also started to suffer from long COVID and had difficulty breathing, which left him awake at night and unable to leave the house.
Making matters worse, Bruce said, Bennett fell and suffered a concussion, forcing him to drop out of Arizona State University, where he was studying English. according to CBS News.
A Study from 2018 found an association between concussions and mild traumatic brain injury and an increased risk of suicide.
“A symptom of concussion is suicide. I didn’t know that. No one ever told me that,” Bruce said.
“I think that only made the sadness he was already feeling worse.”
The teenager was a competitive soccer player and when the substance first arrived at their home, Bruce thought it was just a sports supplement
His father, Bruce Brown, is now fighting for regulations on the preservative that is deadly in high concentrations
After his son’s death, Bruce discovered that Bennett had visited an online forum where people encouraged others to end their lives.
Various methods of doing this would also be described.
Bruce now believes that it was there that his son was introduced to sodium nitrite, a preservative used to preserve meat that is deadly in high concentrations.
When the powder is ingested, it can cause methemoglobinemia, a condition “where the blood can no longer carry oxygen,” according to Dr. Sean McCann of the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago.
He noted that this can be treated with methylene blue, but sodium nitrite acts so quickly that the antidote is often not helpful or not available in time.
Suicide related to sodium nitrite has increased in recent years among young people because it is readily available from major retailers
The number of suicides due to sodium nitrite has increased in recent years, according to a study published in June by the Centers for Disease Control. The agency attributes the rise to online forums like the one Bennett used, where sodium nitrite is often discussed.
Another one study published in January found that self-poisoning with sodium nitrite is “an increasingly common planned suicide method among young people,” with the average victim “being a white male college student with a known depressive disorder and a history of suicidal ideation.”
The substance is readily available at major retailers. According to USA Today, the parents of two teenagers who committed suicide while using the drug are suing Amazon because their children purchased the substance through the website.
In October 2022, Amazon implemented a policy restricting the sale of high levels of the substance. Last June, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
The teenager (pictured with his mother) died on the way to hospital after alerting a family member
In Bennett’s case, the teen was able to purchase 97 percent purity sodium nitrite for $13.99 with two-day delivery from an out-of-state sporting goods store, Colorado Public Radio report.
Apparently he was having second thoughts about whether he wanted to commit suicide and cancelled his order, but when the store’s website told him to buy it anyway, he was told he didn’t want it.
The teenager ingested the toxic substance, but apparently had second thoughts. He contacted a family member and said he needed to go to the hospital immediately.
Emergency services rushed to his suburban home and took him to a local hospital, but he died in the ambulance.
After the teen’s death, Bruce sent a private investigator to the store where Bennett had purchased the substance, where a manager admitted he knew people were using the product to commit suicide.
“My son didn’t want to die,” Bruce insisted. “After he took this poison, he went to a family member and said, ‘I need help.’ That’s very normal for people who commit suicide.
“It’s not a deliberate act. It’s an impulsive act,” continued the former prosecutor, who has since fought for restrictions on the poison.
“So if we can use resource reduction to break that mindset that leads people to the dark place, we can save a lot of lives. And that’s the goal.”
Bennett’s mental health began to suffer during the COVID pandemic, when he was isolated from his friends, his father said
Bruce has been pushing for a bill to restrict the sale of the substance in high concentrations in Colorado, requiring manufacturers to state on the label that it is a toxin and how to combat it.
“After months of grief, I asked myself, ‘What if we could prevent this grief and suffering for other families?’” he told a panel of lawmakers in January, according to Colorado Public Radio.
The bill passed in Colorado with little opposition and went into effect in July.
At the time, the Centennial State was only the third state in the country to impose restrictions on sodium nitrite. New York banned sales of the substance to anyone under 21, and California banned sales to anyone under 18, as well as the sale of the concentrated substance in all cases.
Bruce described his son as funny, athletic and well-liked
Bruce is now also advocating for the Youth Poisoning Protection Act, which would ban the sale of sodium nitrite in high concentrations nationwide.
The bill passed the House of Representatives in May and is now in the Senate.
“You lose a child, there’s nothing worse,” the still grieving father said. “There’s not an hour that goes by that my thoughts don’t go to Bennett.
“He was a great kid. He was funny. He was athletic when he was healthy. He was loved.
“The irony is that he would never hurt another human or animal, yet he committed suicide.”
