AUSTRALIANS in their 20s and 30s are killing themselves with the drug that controversial euthanasia advocate, Dr Philip Nitschke, has promoted as the ''peaceful pill''.

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine has found that 51 people across Australia have died from an overdose of Nembutal in the past 10 years.

While the lethal barbiturate is only available for veterinarians to euthanise animals in Australia, Dr Nitschke has been helping people obtain it from Mexican vets and other overseas sources since the late 1990s. In a report generated exclusively for The Age, the institute said the figure did not represent all deaths caused by the drug, but rather those it could search for on its national database, which has limitations.

But the report provides the first insight into who is using the drug and where they got it from.

While Dr Nitschke has maintained that his organisation, Exit International, tries to restrict its advice to elderly people and those with terminal illnesses or chronic pain over 50, the report revealed six people in their 20s and eight in their 30s had died from an overdose of the drug.