Dr. Philip Haig Nitschke:

The general situation is that there is a set of drugs that are considered to be effective and are traditionally, generally controlled by the medical profession. When you move into a situation where legislation does not say that the medical profession has to be involved, such as in Switzerland, of course someone has to prescribe the drugs. Therefore, the medical profession is dragged into the decision-making. That presents problems under Swiss law when, for example, as we commonly see, couples who want to die together where one is sick and one is not or in the case of very old people who simply say they are not sick but they want to die. The medical profession is then confronted with a problem. How do I give drugs to a non-sick person? The Swiss Medical Association is upset about that issue. However, it is not an issue in Swiss law. In fact, we will be using gas in Switzerland, which is not controlled in any way and does not require medical approval.