The norm in the US – lethal injection – is apparently to essentially knock someone out, then stop their heart. I don’t imagine that one feels anything.
In most states, the intravenous injection is a series of drugs given in a set sequence, designed to first induce unconsciousness followed by death through paralysis of respiratory muscles and/or by cardiac arrest through depolarization of cardiac muscle cells. The execution of the condemned in most states involves three separate injections (in sequential order):
Sodium thiopental or pentobarbital: ultra-short-action barbiturate, an anesthetic agent used at a high dose that renders the person unconscious in less than 30 seconds. Depression of respiratory activity is one of the characteristic actions of this drug. Consequently, the lethal-injection doses, as described in the Sodium Thiopental section below, will—even in the absence of the following two drugs—cause death due to lack of breathing, as happens with overdoses of opioids.
Pancuronium bromide: non-depolarizing muscle relaxant, which causes complete, fast, and sustained paralysis of the striated skeletal muscles, including the diaphragm and the rest of the respiratory muscles; this would eventually cause death by asphyxiation.
Potassium chloride: a potassium salt, which increases the blood and cardiac concentration of potassium to stop the heart via an abnormal heartbeat and thus cause death by cardiac arrest.
The problem with that is dosages. First drug knocks you out, second drug paralyzes you, third drug stops your heart.
But if you fuck up the dosages, the first drug wears off while the second drug is still in effect. So you are awake but paralyzed and can’t move, so nobody knows you are awake. That leaves you conscious while your heart dies which is quite painful.
The companies that make the drugs used to perform lethal injection have refused to participate in the death penalty any longer which is why other forms are being explored.
The drug companies didn’t exactly decide to step away from the death penalty fully on their own initiative. They were threatened with criminal prosecutions in Europe for abetting executions in the United States.
I fully support drug companies not wanting their medications to be used to kill people. On the other hand, we give our dogs and cats painless deaths with their drugs and, if we’re going to be killing people, they deserve the same dignity.
The norm in the US – lethal injection – is apparently to essentially knock someone out, then stop their heart. I don’t imagine that one feels anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_injection
The problem with that is dosages. First drug knocks you out, second drug paralyzes you, third drug stops your heart. But if you fuck up the dosages, the first drug wears off while the second drug is still in effect. So you are awake but paralyzed and can’t move, so nobody knows you are awake. That leaves you conscious while your heart dies which is quite painful.
The companies that make the drugs used to perform lethal injection have refused to participate in the death penalty any longer which is why other forms are being explored.
The drug companies didn’t exactly decide to step away from the death penalty fully on their own initiative. They were threatened with criminal prosecutions in Europe for abetting executions in the United States.
I fully support drug companies not wanting their medications to be used to kill people. On the other hand, we give our dogs and cats painless deaths with their drugs and, if we’re going to be killing people, they deserve the same dignity.
I agree…. If it’s their choice. Not as punishment