Secobarbital, sold under the brand name Seconal among others, is a short-acting barbiturate drug originally used for the treatment of insomnia. It was patented by Eli Lilly and Company in 1934 in the United States.[3] It possesses anesthetic, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, sedative, and hypnotic properties. In the United Kingdom, it was known as quinalbarbitone. Secobarbital is considered to be an obsolete sedative-hypnotic (sleeping pill) and has largely been replaced by the benzodiazepine family. It was widely abused, known on the street as “red devils” or “reds.”[4] Among barbiturates, secobarbital carries a particularly high risk of abuse and addiction, which is largely responsible for it falling out of use.
Secobarbital is used for managing symptoms of epilepsy and for short-term treatment of insomnia. It is also used as a preoperative medication to produce anesthesia and anxiolysis for short surgical, diagnostic, or therapeutic procedures which are minimally painful.[citation needed]
Secobarbital was widely abused for recreational purposes in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and accidental overdose was associated with the drug. Lilly’s Seconal came in a bright orange/red bullet-shaped capsule known as a Pulvule. Prescription use of secobarbital decreased beginning in the early 1980s, by which time benzodiazepines had become increasingly common. Secobarbital has acquired many nicknames, the most common being “reds,” “red devils,” or “red dillies” (because of the color of the capsules). Other common nicknames are “seccies,” “Cardinals,” “ruby slippers,” and, according to the Wegman’s School of Pharmacy curriculum, “red hearts”. A less common nickname is “dolls”; this was partly responsible for the title of Jacqueline Susann’s novel Valley of the Dolls, whose main characters use secobarbital and other such drugs.[citation needed]
In the Netherlands, individuals have two options for assisted dying: they can orally consume 100 mL of concentrated syrup containing either 15 grams of pentobarbital or 15 grams of secobarbital, or they can choose to have 2 grams of thiopental or 1 gram of propofol administered intravenously by a doctor, followed by a muscle relaxant.[11] As of 2010, only 15% of those who died by physician-assisted suicide opted for orally consuming the lethal drug(s), the rest choosing to have the drugs administered intravenously by a doctor instead.[12]
In the United States, secobarbital and pentobarbital are the most common drugs prescribed under physician aid-in-dying laws in Oregon since 1998, Washington since 2008, and Vermont since 2013.[13][14][10] Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited previously experienced various issues in their attempts to produce 100 mg secobarbital capsules.
In 2017, secobarbital was made available for physician-assisted suicide in Canada.


