Question

A death investigator returns from a scene of a questioned death. The victim is an older woman with a history of depression. The investigator found an empty prescription bottle for Valium (5 mg/tab) on the nightstand and a half-empty bottle of wine. The investigator suspects the woman may have committed suicide by taking the entire bottle of tablets with a glass of wine. Comment on this hypothesis, assuming the LD50 (oral) for diazepam is ~100 mg/kg.

*assume a 150 pound woman*

Answer 1

150 pound woman is approximately 68 kg. So according to the LD 50 of diazepam , she would require 100 × 68 =6800mg of diazepam oral dose to suicide.

Now the bottle has tablets 5mg/tab , so even if we assume the bottle of valium to be having 100 tablets in it, even then the oral dose could not exceed more than 500mg which cannot be fatal.

So the investigators should look out for some other reason, for the cause of death, as diazepam poisoning is not likely to have happened.