History Main / CyanidePill

* In the ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' story "The Day the Music Died," the [[EldritchAbomination Oubor]] cultists magically kill themselves to avoid capture by the police.
* ''ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentMarvel'': In the reboot of ''The Amazing ComicBook/SpiderMan'', the terrorist organization Zodiac has its members use a special poison whenever Spidey caught them. Apparently, he got fed up with them doing this, so the web-slinger used his smarts to create an antidote to stop this.
* ''ComicBook/CaptainBritainAndMI13'' has a Vampire spy with a fake fang full of holy water.

* A ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesAdventures'' (the Archie comics) story features {{Mooks}} taking suicide pills that set their heads on fire, burning the flesh off. No reason not to do it with style...
* Played with in ''ComicBook/TheTick'', where a secret agent tells Big Blue that his tooth is filled with deadly poison... only he's forgotten ''which'' tooth. "I try to avoid crunchy foods."

* ''{{ComicBook/XIII}}'': One member of the conspiracy that killed the previous President proudly shows his Roman numeral tattoo before biting down on a pill just before his arrest.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', the hitman that tries to kill Adrian Veidt takes one of these after his attack fails. Except not really, as Veidt had secretly hired him (trusting in his own skills to keep him alive). In order to silence the unfortunate {{Mook|s}}, Veidt forces a cyanide pill into his mouth while pretending he is trying to stop him from committing suicide.

* On ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', the man who kills Eli David and Jackie Vance is wounded and cornered by Ziva and Gibbs; rather than let himself be arrested, he bites a poisoned cigarette and is dead within seconds.

* In ''Assignment Gestapo'', after Lieutenant Ohlsen is sentenced to decapitation by a Nazi tribunal, the Legionnaire is able to smuggle him a poison capsule. The guards are suspicious and tear apart his cell (it will be [[YouHaveFailedMe their heads]] if a prisoner kills himself before he's due to be executed) but fail to discover it. Unfortunately, Ohlsen fails to take the pill straight away, and a [[ShootTheShaggyDog later search discovers it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'':

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Castle}},'' the eponymous character leaps in to stop a captured Chinese spy from swallowing one. It turns out to be chewing gum.

* Vaso Čubrilović, one of the assassins of Archduke Ferdinand attempted suicide, only the cyanide pills to only induce vomiting. The assassins' guild, known as the Black Hand, co-opted a smaller local group known as Young Bosnia, to act as a proxy. Young Bosnia was grossly doubted in competence so they gave them secondhand gear, as well as the fact that the Black Hand's stocks of cyanide had been riddled with impurities.

* The assassins' guild known as the Black Hand, despite sparking World War I, were on the whole outlandishly incompetent. After they'd, through [[ForWantOfANail pure coincidence]], managed to kill Archduke Ferdinand, it turned out the cyanide pills they'd reserved for their capture ''failed to work.'' Young Bosnia, which was one of the smaller, local groups known that the Black Hand co-opted to act as a proxy, was grossly doubted in competence so they gave them secondhand gear. That, and consider the fact that the Black Hand's stocks of cyanide had been riddled with impurities, and you get what happened.
* One of the most iconic Danish resistance fighters during World War II, Bent Faurschou-Hviid, better known under his codename "Flammen" (The Flame), committed suicide with a cyanide capsule in October 1944 to avoid capture by the Gestapo. When a number of Danish resistance fighters were captured by the Gestapo, the resistance appealed to Britain to help them, as the resistance was unable to get cyanide pills to them. In one of the most daring missions of the war, the British sent in bombers to bomb the Danish Gestapo headquarters, freeing them from the basement prison. Although the mission was successful, in a tragic error, during the mission the bombers also accidentally bombed a nearby children's school. After the war, some of the bomber pilots visited the families and found the families were comforting ''them''. The families understood how necessary the mission was and that the children's deaths were an accident.

* ''Literature/BabylonBerlin'' by Creator/VolkerKutscher. A man being tortured for information is left alone until he recovers for another go. He's able to crawl to his coat, remove a glass capsule from the lining and bite down on it.

* The assassins' guild known as the Black Hand, despite sparking World War I, were on the whole outlandishly incompetent. After they'd, through [[ForWantOfANail pure coincidence]], managed to kill Archduke Ferdinand, it turned out the cyanide pills they'd reserved for their capture ''failed to work.'' This becomes understandable when you realize the context. Firstly, it is a common mistake to believe that the group that directly attacked Ferdinand's motorcade was the Black Hand. It wasn't; it was actually a small Anarchist/Nationalist (yes, go figure) group called Young Bosnia, which was one of the smaller, local groups known that the Black Hand (actually "Unity or Death" in its native Serbian) co-opted to act as a proxy. The Black Hand itself was horrifically effective (their spate of assassinations in Bosnia, Austria, and Bulgaria shows as much), but the higher-ups grossly doubted the competence of YB (not entirely unjustly), and so they gave them secondhand gear. That, and consider the fact that the Black Hand's stocks of cyanide had been riddled with impurities, and you get what happened.

* Secret agents carrying cyanide in hollowed-out teeth is pretty much urban legend; in fact, this would place agents at risk of killing themselves accidentally every time they ate or drank something.
* Of course, claiming that a suspect who dies under interrogation was "a spy who took a hidden suicide pill" is a favourite excuse of political police; it sounds better than explaining that their victim was a harmless political dissident killed by brutal fascist cops.

* Not a pill, but Bosnian war criminal [[https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-42204587 Slobodan Praljak]] drank a vial of cyanide in the Hague when he was being tried for his crimes.

* In ''Film/OnTheBeach'', the Australian government hands out suicide pills so their citizens can avoid the painful, and inevitable, death by radiation poisoning. An Australian naval officer who is on the mission has the difficult task of talking his wife into euthanizing their baby daughter, and then herself, if he hasn't returned by the time the end comes.

* ''Literature/OnTheBeach'': In the {{after|TheEnd}}math of an apocalyptic nuclear war, with fallout having killed most of the globe and spreading southward, the Australian government provides cyanide pills to its citizens so that they need not die slowly of radiation poisoning.

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[[caption-width-right:325:"Shoot him! He's trying to commit suicide!"]]
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!!As this is a DeathTrope, unmarked spoilers abound in the examples below. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!

* ''Der Nasse Fisch'' by Creator/VolkerKutscher. A man being tortured for information is left alone until he recovers for another go. He's able to crawl to his coat, remove a glass capsule from the lining and bite down on it. When they find his corpse the police are surprised by the smile on his face, but it turns out the pill contained not cyanide but heroin, which was [[DeliberateValuesDissonance used as a cough medicine at the time]].

* ''Der Nasse Fisch'' by Creator/VolkerKutscher. A man being tortured for information is able to crawl to his coat, remove a glass capsule from the lining and bite down on it. The police are surprised by the smile on his corpse, but it turns out the pill contains not cyanide but an overdose of heroin ([[DeliberateValuesDissonance used as a cough medicine at the time]]).

* In ''Series/AgentCarter'', SSR chief Dooley travels to Nuremberg to interrogate a Nazi imprisoned there and sentenced to be hanged. Dooley offers him a cyanide pill to die quicker and without the risk of mis-hanging if the Nazi spills about some classified information. A minute later, though, [[KickTheSonOfABitch it turns out Dooley was lying]]; it was just a breath mint.

* ''Literature/TheAdversaryCycle'' "Nightworld". A member of an AncientConspiracy which helps bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt carries a vial of cyanide in case the ultimate evil doesn't hold up [[WeCanRuleTogether his end of the bargain]]. After watching TheSwarm chomp on his compatriots [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness without any word from his master]] he realises he's well and truly screwed and takes out his vial...only for it to be sent flying when something nasty takes a bite out of his arm. The rest of the nasty chewing things are on top of him before he can pick it up again.
* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' the Arn bioengineer themselves to die if they are taken over by a yeerk. In ''The Andalite Chronicles'', Esplin 9466 aka Sub-Visser Seven mentions that no Yeerk has successfully infested an Andalite since they immediately use their tail-blades on themselves when captured. [[spoiler:He is able to pull this off thanks to Elfangor rendering Alloran unconscious. Esplin being the first Yeerk to acquire an Andalite host (one with a lot of military secrets in his head to boot) puts him on the fast track to promotion. In the series proper he's better known as Visser Three.]]

* ''Assignment Gestapo'' by Creator/SvenHassel. After Lieutenant Ohlsen is sentenced to decapitation by a Nazi tribunal, the Legionnaire is able to smuggle him a poison capsule. The guards are suspicious and tear apart his cell (it will be [[YouHaveFailedMe their heads]] if a prisoner kills himself before he's due to be executed) but fail to discover it. Unfortunately, Ohlsen fails to take the pill straight away, and a [[ShootTheShaggyDog later search discovers it]].
* Creator/LRonHubbard's ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'' (the book, not the movie) has this with high-ranking Psychlos. Anyone who knows their classified, encrypted math system gets some brainwashing and an implant in his brain. If he attempts to teach the secret to any other race, a fuse blows and his mind is fried.
* ''Between Silk and Cyanide'' by Leo Marks. Marks is trying to convince SOE to replace the poem code (which can be memorized by an agent, yet easily broken by German cryptographers, assuming the Gestapo doesn't just torture the code out of them) with the more secure WOK code. As the WOK code has to be carried on the agent's person, Marks wants them printed on silk which will escape a pat-down search, but silk is in short supply (due to the demand for parachutes). Asked to summarize his argument in a report, Marks replies that he can do it in a single sentence: "It's a choice [[TitleDrop between silk and cyanide]]" (the L-Pill which agents are issued to kill themselves to escape torture).

* A similar magical method, called "death-triggers" is used in the ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'' novels.
* In the ''Literature/{{Destroyer}}'' series of novels, Dr. Smith has a Cyanide pill in a false tooth. He would swallow it if C.U.R.E.'s security is ever breached.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Literature/DeathMasks'', Nicodemus' fanatics are equipped with cyanide pills in case of arrest. They end up chomping down on them when defeated and handcuffed.

* ''Fear is the Key'', by Alistair [=MacLean=]. The protagonist John Talbot and the villains are trapped on the bottom of the ocean in a submersible. To convince them that he's NotAfraidToDie, Talbot puts a button from his shirt in his mouth and tells them it's a suicide pill that will kill him quickly, whereas they'll die slowly of suffocation. It's actually a bluff to get an EngineeredPublicConfession.
* The title character of ''[[Literature/FirebirdTrilogy Firebird]]'' was sent to war ''under orders'' to kill herself in the line of duty (Members of the royal family more than four places from the throne traditionally suicide so as to prevent succession disputes. With the recent birth of her niece, she was now fifth in line for the throne). After failing to get shot down, and failing to kamikaze into a mountain, she takes poison as she is tractored into an enemy warship so that she cannot be interrogated. Her captors realize that she'd taken poison almost immediately and manage to keep her alive.
* ''Free Flight'' by Douglas Termen is set in a [=post-WW3=] North America. The Canadian government has issued a free kit of two syringes called a Richeloff set. One syringe holds a nerve agent that stops your heart after two hours, the other an antidote in case you change your mind. However to ease your passing the poison syringe also contains a narcotic, and once someone takes it the feeling of euphoria is so pleasant few people are inclined to take the antidote. The protagonist is given the set by the father of his LoveInterest, to ensure she won't be taken alive by the SecretPolice of the InvadedStatesOfAmerica. Fortunately he doesn't have to use it.
* Subverted in the novel ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove''. The world's quintessential spy, Literature/JamesBond, is issued a cyanide pill with his kit. He flushes it down the toilet at the first opportunity.
* In ''[[Literature/SmallChange Half a Crown]]'', an AlternateHistory novel in which Britain made peace with Hitler rather than fight World War II, the leader of the British secret police has formed a group ''inside'' the secret police that defies the government by doing things like smuggling Jews out of the country. All members have a false tooth implanted with a cyanide pill so they can take it rather than be forced to betray the others.
* In the DarkerAndEdgier ''Literature/TheHardyBoys Casefiles'' series, the boys had a recurring nemesis in the Assassins, all of whom were equipped with a poison tooth. This led to a situation where Joe was rushing towards an Assassin when he realizes said character is having a problem getting his tooth out. So he ''[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome punches it out of the guy's mouth]]''.
* In ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' "Torch of Freedom", the protagonists realize that something is seriously screwy with the Mesa Corporation when one of their agents resorts to this rather than be captured. Victor Cachat also carries one everywhere he goes; other spies find this somewhat excessive.
* In the third ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' novel, ''Mockingjay'', Katniss has one of these and attempts to use it at the end of the book, but [[InterruptedSuicide is stopped]].
* ''Literature/IAmLegend''. Facing torture and execution, the protagonist is given this by a sympathetic member of the infected for a MercyKill.
* ''Literature/IfThisGoesOn''. The protagonist is told that the Inquisitors have gotten wise to the hollow tooth trick, but LaResistance has developed different methods, including one you can use if your hands are tightly bound behind your back -- being held in that position, which you can't do without conscious effort, ruptures the poison capsule. The man explaining this mentions that in his case he has a bomb implanted in his belly that will kill not only himself but [[TakingYouWithMe anyone else in the room.]]
* A variant in the ''{{Literature/Lensmen}}'' series: For a time, Boskonian agents were equipped with a false tooth filled with a drug that would wipe their memories, for use in the event of their capture. This was [[LensmanArmsRace superseded]] by "mental operations" that made them believe that the orders they followed were their own idea, without any memory of the higher-ups who gave them those orders.
* Some cultists in David Eddings's ''Literature/TheMalloreon'' series come with an automatic, magical one preinstalled; upon being asked a certain question, the one who gets interrogated goes mad and throws himself off a cliff, laughing maniacally all the way.
* ''Literature/TheMartian'': [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] but ultimately not used. After he's stranded Mark Watney checks the remaining supplies and mentions that there's enough morphine for a lethal dose. He decides that if his food runs out he'll take the morphine to spare himself a long death by starvation.

* In Peter F. Hamilton's ''[[Literature/NightsDawn Night's Dawn Trilogy]]'', a protagonist is surrounded by hordes of [[TheVirus possessed]] whose modus operandi is to torture people until they lose the will to live and allow themselves to be possessed. To avoid that fate and pull a TakingYouWithMe, she issues a "kamikaze code" to her PoweredArmor, blowing herself and her attackers up.

* ''Literature/PhoenixForce''. In "Tooth and Claw", Phoenix Force capture some KGB agents and one of them bites down on a fake molar right away. Katz jams his HookHand into another agent's mouth knowing he can't bite through metal, then uses his other hand to feel for the smooth enamel of a fake tooth and rip it out. [[CombatMedic Calvin James]] just solves the problem by slamming his fist into the [[JawDrop jaw to cause it to fall open]] before the agent can bite.

* ''A Piece of Resistance'', a novel by Clive Egleton set in a [[AlternateHistory Soviet-occupied Britain]]. Two members of LaResistance are caught by a counter-intelligence agent. The woman bites down on her cigarette and suddenly falls to the ground. It turns out there is no suicide pill; she was simply [[WeNeedADistraction creating a distraction]] so her partner could attack the agent. Ironically, at the end of the novel, the same woman is stopped by police and bites down on a suicide pill she's carrying in her mouth -- it turns out that her papers were in order and it was simply a routine check.

* Subverted in the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000: Literature/{{Eisenhorn}}'' trilogy, where a captured {{Mook|s}} commits ''unintentional'' suicide when Eisenhorn tries to interrogate him, thanks to an implanted bomb in his head that's set to go off if the bearer even ''thinks'' of revealing a certain piece of information.
* In William King's ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Literature/SpaceWolf'' novel ''Wolfblade'', they find an assassin dead of poison -- causing Ragnor to comment on what a fanatic the assassin must have been. The possibility of mind control is brought up.