Talk:List of deaths from drug overdose and intoxication

Poes death is famously unknown

It's even mentioned in the poe article. Either this one is wrong or the other one os. Why was my edit reverted??? Deadlyops (talk) 11:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

My best guess is it was reverted because your explanation in the edit summary was written in a way which could be interpreted as you just stating your opinion, rather than linking to something that would verify your assertion. Many edits to this article are made with either no or limited explanation, and while in an ideal world each one would be investigated thoroughly, people are time poor. I didn't revert your edit but I probably would have done so as well if I had seen it first. You haven't done anything wrong, but I suggest a better edit summary would have been "Poe's cause of death was never confirmed - see Death of Edgar Allan Poe". You're clearly right that the cause of death is not agreed upon. However, this article does indeed still list people whose cause of death is not agreed upon, as long as the fact it is not agreed upon is clarified in the table. Damien Linnane (talk) 03:05, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

List countries by aggregate drug deaths per 100,000

someone should create another article listing all the countries of the world by their rate of drug-related deaths per 100,000 people. 72.193.210.80 (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

How to handle Diane Linkletter

In my opinion, Diane Linkletter is worthy of inclusion in this list. However, her death occurred 6 months after LSD ingestion.

There is also a film about her death as well that has a Wikipedia article: The Diane Linkletter Story.

How should we include her in this list? Asdf49722 (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for your interest, but unfortunately, if she died 6 months after LSD ingestion, she definitely should not be on the list. As the lead section clarifies, this article is for acute deaths from drug overdose and intoxication only. Damien Linnane (talk) 00:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Ahh, but it's also possible she had taken LSD right before her death.

"Although Linkletter had not spoken to Diane in the last twenty-four hours of her life, he believed that she had taken LSD the night before her death and had experienced another bad trip which caused her to leap to her death."

This is really a test case for this list and I am excited to hear your response! Asdf49722 (talk) 02:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

If the only evidence of drug use is someone who wasn't there speculating they MIGHT have taken them, I really don't think that can used as a reliable source for stating the cause of death. You may find this article from Snopes interesting: [1]. It notes that her father started attributing her death to drug use before an autopsy was even conducted, and that the autopsy later found there was no signs of drug use. As the article states: "We don't even know if she'd actually ever taken LSD at any time in her life, since the only accounts that she had came from her family in the aftermath of her death. What we do know is she wasn't on drugs at the time of her death." Damien Linnane (talk) 07:35, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. According to your interpretation, it sounds like we would classify her death not due to her immediate drug use, but due to Substance-induced psychosis from LSD use. Frank Olson died under similar circumstances, 9 days after taking LSD. There are other similar cases, but they don't have Wikipedia pages.

Do you think we should create a page for 'List of Deaths from Substance-Induced Psychosis' in order to properly record and categorize these deaths? Asdf49722 (talk) 00:45, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

My interpretation is that it's alleged her death is due to substance-induced psychosis, but this is only an allegation as there's no hard evidence she ever even took LSD. That's not saying she didn't ever take any, she very well might have, but the only source that she ever took it is her family saying so after she died, and while they could be telling the truth, as the Snopes article notes, they did also have motivation to say that even if it wasn't true. But I digress. If there's enough people who meet that criteria for a 'List of deaths from substance-induced psychosis', by all means, an article could be created. I'm not sure what the base criteria would be, as in how many people you'd need, but I'm assuming it would have to be at least 10. You'd have to look into that elsewhere though. In any case, I'm unfortunately not available to help with that though; these days on Wikipedia I only monitor my watchlist as I typically don't have the time to take on new projects. Keep in mind though that even if a list was created, based on the Snopes article (and Snopes is considered high quality by Wikipedia), Linketter's death should be listed as 'alleged' to have happened in this manner, in the same way that some deaths are listed as only 'suspected' to be from drug overdose in this article. I hope that helps. :) Damien Linnane (talk) 01:05, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for explaining things. I think I understand now. Cheers. Asdf49722 (talk) 01:15, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Add Socrates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates Vacilandois (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion but this was discussed and agreed against at FAC. This article doesn't include people who were sentenced to execution via drug intoxication. Damien Linnane (talk) 23:48, 29 July 2025 (UTC)