It is argued that suicide rates may be reduced by decreasing the availability, cultural acceptance or lethality of certain methods of suicide. With these principles in mind, fatal overdoses in Brisbane 1979-87 were surveyed for substances involved. Psychotropic agents, especially barbiturates, predominated. Chloral hydrate was the most commonly implicated single compound. A case is put for curtailing the availability of barbiturates & chloral hydrate. (10 refs.)