Amazon shoppers used to be able to easily access a chemical that can be lethal in high concentrations.

After dozens of warnings that Amazon customers had used that chemical to die by suicide, the company restricted its sale in October 2022. It did so without admitting any wrongdoing, maintaining that the sale of the substance was legal and that Amazon couldn’t be held responsible for its intentional misuse.

Then, last year, there was another death.

Benjamin Grange, a 31-year-old from New York, received a delivery of high-concentration sodium nitrite in July. He died a month later after ingesting it, according to a lawsuit filed last month against Amazon in King County Superior Court.

It is the 10th lawsuit against Amazon for the sale of this chemical. The cases represent a total of 28 families who lost loved ones to suicide by this method.

The controversial sale of sodium nitrite over the last several years has caught the attention of federal lawmakers and government agencies. In 2022, Congress sent a letter to Amazon urging the company to limit “fast access” to the substance. In 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict the sale of the chemical, but the legislation stalled in the Senate. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said ingesting the chemical was an “emerging suicide method.”

Now, two separate actions unfolding in Washington could set a precedent.

State lawmakers passed a bill this month to limit the sale of high concentrations of the chemical to verified commercial businesses, making it harder for individuals to access and misuse the substance. In February, attorneys representing the 28 families who lost loved ones asked the Washington state Supreme Court to take up the first of the 10 lawsuits, hoping to reverse an appellate court ruling to dismiss the case. A ruling in favor of the families could permanently end the sale on Amazon and affect the outcome of the remaining cases.

Attorneys Carrie Goldberg and Naomi Leeds, who are representing the families, said both actions are needed.

“Regulation is to prevent similar conduct in the future. Litigation is the tool to hold (companies) responsible for prior harms,” the lawyers said in an emailed statement. Corporations “don’t have heartbeats or emotions. We cannot simply trust a corporation to choose what is right. We have to make them.”

Amazon acknowledged that the deaths were tragic, but said in court records it can’t be held responsible when customers intentionally misuse products sold on its platform. A spokesperson declined to answer questions about Grange’s death in August or other allegations in the 10 lawsuits.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones personally affected by suicide,” the spokesperson said. “Customer safety is a top priority at Amazon. We are committed to a safe shopping experience.”

Tyler’s Law

The bill passed by Washington lawmakers is labeled as Tyler’s Law, in honor of Tyler Schmidt, a 15-year-old from Camas, Washington, who died in December 2020 after ingesting sodium nitrite.

The chemical in a low-purity form can be used as a food preservative or in medical lab settings, but in high concentrations it can be lethal. Amazon sold sodium nitrite at 99% purity.

The CDC classifies sodium nitrite as an antidote or chelating agent, substances that can be used to counteract poison or toxins. As a group, antidotes and chelating agents account for less than 1% of suicides but the method is increasing, from 22 suicides in 2018 to a peak of 229 in 2022, according to the CDC.

Tyler’s mother, Michelle Vasquez-Stickley, told lawmakers at a January hearing that she remembers picking up the Amazon package that had been delivered to her doorstep. She placed it in her son’s bedroom, assuming it was art supplies, “unknowingly giving him access to the substance that would ultimately take his life,” Vasquez-Stickley said.

She had Tyler’s passwords and kept track of his activities, she continued, but wasn’t able to protect her son from something she didn’t yet know was a threat.

In a letter left for his mother, Tyler said he knew this would be hard but that she must “keep going.”

“I will go on,” Vasquez-Stickley said at the legislative hearing. “But my mission will be different. … My new mission will be to protect other families from enduring this heartache.”

Tyler’s Law would limit the sale of high concentrations of sodium nitrite to verified commercial businesses and put requirements in place for labeling and marketing the chemical. The bill set a $10,000 penalty for the first violation and up to $1 million for subsequent offenses.

It faced little opposition at the January hearing, though some lawmakers and business trade groups expressed concern about the ability for individuals to sue companies over alleged violations. Enforcement should be limited to the Attorney General’s Office, rather than private right of action, those groups said.

Rep. Jeremie Dufault, a Republican representing parts of Yakima County, said he supported the bill but didn’t agree that a violation of Tyler’s Law should be considered a violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. He worried that provision would lead to an “unrelenting expansion” of restrictions on other products in ways the law didn’t intend.

Notably, the lawsuits regarding the sale of sodium nitrite accuse Amazon of violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act.

Amazon declined to comment on the legislation, but Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, a Democrat who sponsored the Senate bill, said the company had expressed its support for the law.

In October 2022, Amazon limited the sale of high-concentration sodium nitrite to business users, making it more difficult for individuals to access. But Trudeau said at a January hearing, “we want to make sure that (restriction) is permanent. And that no other businesses can then take their place.”

The bill passed both chambers of the Legislature but has not yet been signed by the governor. If it is signed, it will take effect immediately.

'Compelling questions'

Unbeknownst to Vasquez-Stickley at the time of her son’s death, another mother, states away, took on the same mission.

Ruth Scott lost her son Mikael in December 2020 after he ingested the same chemical as Tyler Schmidt. Mikael was a 27-year-old living in Texas and had purchased the substance on Amazon, according to a receipt Ruth Scott found on his phone.

She became the first plaintiff to sue Amazon for the sale of sodium nitrite in February 2022.

Amazon originally lost a bid to drop that case, but an appellate court reversed that decision in November. Washington’s Court of Appeals Division 1 in Seattle sided with the e-commerce company that a seller is not bound to protect against the intentional misuse of a product.

It ruled that Scott’s case, as well as another that had been consolidated with the original complaint, should be dismissed.

In an informal opinion, the appellate court noted that the case “poses compelling questions” about corporate liability in the world of e-commerce and algorithms, where a store clerk can’t verify age or identity and where shoppers can make lightning-fast purchases with few restrictions.

“Ultimately, it has highlighted a point in our cultural evolution where the controlling law has yet to adapt to our lived experiences,” the appellate court wrote. “This intermediate court is without the authority to harmonize them.”

Goldberg and Leeds, who are representing Scott, Vasquez-Stickley and the other families who lost loved ones, took that as an invitation. Last month, the law firm C.A. Goldberg and co-counsel Corrie Yackulic asked the Washington state Supreme Court to take up the case and consider those very questions.

The families who have lost loved ones “have an interest in establishing that Washington companies are not entitled to knowingly provide a suicide chemical … without legal liability for the harms they cause,” the attorneys wrote in court documents.

The Supreme Court has yet to respond to the petition for review.

Sen. Trudeau is optimistic the two lanes of action happening at once will “change business behavior,” she said in an interview this month. “Both litigation and legislation help businesses understand — the next time you get a notice, you better do something about it.”

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