The Australian state of Victoria has enacted euthanasia laws to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with lethal medication. The first death could take place in as soon as three weeks.

Voluntary euthanasia became legal in Australia’s second-most populous state, Victoria on Wednesday, more than 20 years after the country repealed the first mercy-killing law for the terminally ill.

The process of an assisted suicide would take at least 10 days, so the first terminally ill patient could die from swallowing a lethal cocktail of chemicals on June 29.

Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries. Victoria is the first Australian state to legalize it.

Via Reuters