It is also used as a preoperative medication to produce anesthesia and anxiolysis for short surgical, diagnostic, or therapeutic procedures which are minimally painful.

Other common nicknames are "seccies," "Cardinals," "ruby slippers," and, according to the Wegman's School of Pharmacy curriculum, "red hearts".

[citation needed] Actresses Carole Landis, Judy Garland, playwright Tennessee Williams, and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen allegedly either died by suicide or of accidentally overdosing on secobarbital.

[6] In 1978, 1,000 pills of Seconal were recovered in Jonestown, along with substantial quantities of Valium, Thorazine, Talwin, Demerol, and other sedatives, hypnotics, and analgesics.

[12] In the United States, secobarbital and pentobarbital are the most common drugs prescribed under physician aid-in-dying laws in Oregon since 1998, Washington since 2008, and Vermont since 2013.

[13][14][10] Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited previously experienced various issues in their attempts to produce 100 mg secobarbital capsules.

At the time Marathon Pharmaceuticals obtained ownership of the brand name, the retail price for one 100 mg capsule (depending upon prescription size and pharmacy) averaged about one U.S. dollar.

By February 2015, when Marathon sold the rights to Valeant Pharmaceuticals,[24] the average retail price per 100 mg capsule had risen to over thirty dollars.