MOST people around Darwin know him as Jimmy “the Shearer” Lowdon, but that’s not how the 78-year-old wants to be remembered when he’s dead.
Jimmy Lowdon

Jimmy Lowdon with dog Jock. Picture: Terry Trewin

He wants his friends, enemies and, most importantly, Australia’s politicians to know that in the end it wasn’t the cancer that got him but a small glassful of the lethal drug Nembutal.

Mr Lowdon is one of more than 100 Australians since February who have successfully – and illegally – bought the euthanasia drug over the internet from Mexico.

What’s different about Mr Lowdon is that he’s prepared to state publicly before he dies that he has the contraband substance.

He risks being raided by the police, but he told The Australian: “They’ll be pushing shit uphill if they reckon they’re going to find my stash.” For an old shearer who didn’t know how to send an email not so long ago, Mr Lowdon has learned fast.

He is not a member of Exit International, the pro-euthanasia organisation run by Phillip Nitschke, but he had read his banned work, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, where he found the details of the Mexican mail order supplier for the drug.

About six weeks ago, he deposited $810 into the bank account of the Mexican dealer and exchanged emails. A week later, two bottles of Nembutal arrived by courier at his housing commission door. The labels were ripped off and the contents were described on the invoice as perfume, but Mr Lowdon is certain he has finally got what he spent the past 18 months searching for – a guaranteed and dignified death.

“I’m not scared of dying, but I’ve seen people die hard and it’s not for me,” he said.

Now he has the drug, he is not planning to use it any time soon because he’s not ready. Mr Lowdon has just begun a new diet that he’s hoping will slow the prostate cancer that has spread to his bladder. “But I’m not an idiot and I’ve been told it’s heading for my bones, so that’s why I’ve gone through hell trying to get my hands on some Nembutal,” he said yesterday.

He has given one of the bottles to a friend. “I know how down you get when you’re trying to procure the stuff so I wanted to help someone else,” he said.

Like others who have attempted to buy Nembutal on the black market, Mr Lowdon had a few false starts.

Too sick to travel to Mexico, where other Australians have bought Nembutal from veterinary suppliers and brought it back into the country, Mr Lowdon was getting frantic. “I spent nearly $1000 buying 15 morphine tablets off a drug dealer because I thought that might do the trick, but then I heard there was no guarantee they’d work, so I just kept searching,” he said.

“It’s a bastard having to go through this. My little dog Jock is better off than I am. He hasn’t got cancer, and if he did I’d be able to take him to the vet and he’d get a shot of Nembutal.”

Footnote: Please Law Makers don’t make the sick go through hoops to ensure a good death.

I know I picked up an empty springe from the street in St Kilda thinking I may be able to use it at a later date for my own needs.  I laughed to myself as I carefully washed it clean so I wouldn’t contract AIDS from using it.  It really brought home to me that desperate people do desperate things!  I have no idea how to insert a needle into the arm, but I’ve watched often enough to see it done to myself…..I too thought about having to purchase herion off the streets,  but I don’t even know the lingo to ask for it….I don’t know whether it is in grams, or what and when I have it in my posession what do I do with it?

If only the law would change and enable people like myself who want choice over their own end of life decisions, we would have to spend time devising ideas to ensure our own demise is simple and swift rather than long and tendious….