The Hemlock Society (sometimes called Hemlock Society USA) was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003. It was co-founded in Santa Monica, California by British author and activist Derek Humphry, his wife Ann Wickett Humphry (1942–1991), and Gerald A. Larue. It relocated to Oregon in 1988 and, according to Humphry, had several homes over the course of its life. The group took its name from Conium maculatum, a highly poisonous biennial herbaceous flowering plant in the carrot family. The name was a direct reference to the method by which the Athenian philosopher Socrates took his life in 399 B.C., as described in Plato's Phaedo.The Hemlock Society's primary mission included providing information to the dying and supporting legislat