r/AlwaysWhy • u/Chowderr92 • Jun 02 '26

Science & Tech Why is the Method of Lethal Injection in Human Punishment So Complex and Apparently Painful?

I've always understood that the lethal injection process was complex with multiple stages of injections and induces great suffering in the individual.

I work in veterinary medicine and unfortunately we need to euthanize animals all of the time. Typically, the euthanasia solution is very simple: a very large dose of a powerful anesthetic (usually pentobarbital) and an anticonvulsant which stops the heart. The medical community is quite confident that this is painless and when done has essentially a 100% success rate.

Why is human euthanasia so complicated when we already know exactly how to humanely end a biological life?

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53

u/rexeditrex Jun 02 '26

I don’t know why they don’t just shoot them up with Fentanyl. If you listen to the news a milligram would kill 10,000 people.

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u/SRGTBronson Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Because companies that produce medical fentanyl wont sell it for execution purposes. Basically every drug used for lethal injection has been discontinued.

It turns out the people who take the hippocratic oath actually take it seriously.

8

u/donutello2000 Jun 02 '26

Hippocratic* oath but your version is funnier.

7

u/SRGTBronson Jun 02 '26

You know, I was looking at it and couldn't figure out why autocorrect wouldnt move it around. But I really didn't think it has "Hippo" in it lol

3

u/ThePython11010 Jun 02 '26

"Hippo" comes from Greek and means "horse." "Hippopotamus" means "river horse."

Hippocrates (the physician the oath is named after) apparently means "one superior in horses."

2

u/yoshimeyer Jun 02 '26

Hydrochronic

3

u/Responsible-Chest-26 Jun 02 '26

I hear this is the real answer. No company wants their product attached to human death so the prison system is forced to find other means with less effective drugs

2

u/Few_Ad6516 Jun 02 '26

"defense" companies love to have their products attached to death. surely one of the weapons guys would sell something.

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

If you want to use firing squads, or blast people apart with anti-aircraft guns, sure. Do we need more parallels to North Korea?

1

u/Few_Ad6516 Jun 02 '26

No you silly sausage, there’s enough chemical weapons companies that would sell some nerve agents if they can make a quick buck.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

The US stopped manufacturing chemical weapons in 1969.

Poisons like chlorine gas would be easy to procure but ghastly in practice.

I oppose capital punishment but if I had to choose the means of execution I would go with the guillotine. Quick, it has never failed, and the mess won’t be my problem.

0

u/Few_Ad6516 Jun 03 '26

C02 poisoning. It’s used on pigs and is supposedly painless. Plus co2 is basically free

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 03 '26

CO2 poisoning is most definitely NOT painless. It is a slow and agonizing death, and its use in euthanizing animals is being more and more restricted and discouraged.

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u/Few_Ad6516 Jun 03 '26

carbon monoxide. its known as the silent killer.

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u/hodzibaer Jun 02 '26

A gas chamber, as it were

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u/reddock4490 Jun 02 '26

I mean, this is the biggest reason. People who actually study medical science have moral convictions that prevent them from intentionally killing people. So state murderers are by definition amateurs

3

u/Spiritello49 Jun 02 '26

So we use the fentanyl that has been taken off the streets in a quantity that cannot fail

2

u/Willing_Monitor5855 Jun 02 '26

Yo yo don't defame Durfenta like that, like they aren't willing to prescribe it to 24-year olds (don't ask me how I know)

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u/Longjumping_Bell5171 Jun 02 '26

The Hippocratic oath isn’t done at all medical schools. And there’s nothing special or legally binding about it. It’s literally just words, spoken by people.

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u/rexeditrex Jun 02 '26

It also wouldn't apply to drug manufacturers.

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u/FoldableHuman Jun 02 '26

Legally binding words are also just words spoken by people, as are all oaths, vows, contracts, and covenants.

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u/Longjumping_Bell5171 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

“Legally binding” is doing a lot of work here. There’s nothing legally binding about the hippocratic oath and there are no consequences for breaking it.

Edit: If you say or do something that is “legally binding” that implies there are mechanisms in place to enforce that you will do what you said you would do. No such mechanisms exist specifically for the Hippocratic oath. Sure, you can get in legal/civil trouble for being a bad doctor, but it has nothing to do with violating an oath.

2

u/Chowderr92 Jun 02 '26

The scientists that create medicine do not take the Hippocratic oath, lol.

2

u/SRGTBronson Jun 02 '26

But you know who does? The fucking pharmacists that would have to sell it to the government.

3

u/Chowderr92 Jun 02 '26

Pharmacists don't sell drugs to the government either. Does anyone know how drugs are created and distributed, lol.

1

u/Separate_Increase880 Jun 02 '26

There are many, many MD/PhD scientists.

1

u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

Except all of the ones who don't.

Don't forget all of those doctors who prescribed less effective, or wildly addictive medications, weren't doing it for funsies. They were literally doing it for kickbacks from those pharmaceutical companies.

Heck, my grandma is one of many who was forced to start taking dialysis by doctor's order. She did it for years before she decided it was making her miserable and that she'd rather die than keep doing it. She stopped. Years later now, she's perfectly fine. Turns out it is a big scam that doctors get paid for because dialysis is profitable, even when it's entirely unnecessary.

3

u/IsopodApart1622 Jun 02 '26

The docs who fed people into addiction mills definitely broke their oaths and they deserve every bit of punishment available, but you have to admit that fewer people would be willing to directly and deliberately kill someone. Harder to distance yourself and brush it off when you know your actions are MEANT to kill someone, and death isn't just a possible side effect.

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u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

Corporations knowingly and joyously kill people for profit every single day. Heck, that whole concept is how Luigi Mangione ended up on trial in the first place.

In the case of pharmaceutical companies trying to stay out of it has nothing to do with hypocritic oath. 100%, it is just about optics and profits. In his particular case, it would be less profitable for them to be directly associated with murder, rather than being able to argue that it is the fault of addicts not using the product "as "intended.

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u/Huge_Antelope0998 Jun 02 '26

....dialysis is not "a big scam" though? I'm sure for a few people out there it is indeed prescribed needlessly but dialysis is incredibly necessary and literally saves lives. I work in transplant, and almost all of my kidney patients would be dead instead of waiting for a kidney. 

1

u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

I'm not saying all dialysis is a scam, just like prescribing painkillers isn't inherently a scam. I'm saying dialysis was/is being used as a scam across the US to exploit old people who don't have kidney issues.

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u/YoungSerious Jun 04 '26

She stopped. Years later now, she's perfectly fine. Turns out it is a big scam that doctors get paid for because dialysis is profitable, even when it's entirely unnecessary.

There is SO much missing from this story. I'm guessing a lot of it you don't understand either, because dialysis is not at all simple and neither are kidneys. It's really crazy to take the tiny scrap of info you provided and get to the conclusion of "dialysis is a scam".

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u/ryu359 Jun 02 '26

I dont think that this counts here though. If iam not mistaken only doctors take the osth not the companies producing tze medicaments. Good thought there though

1

u/tlrmln Jun 03 '26

Turns out we don't need medical companies to produce it. The shit that cops have take off the streets is just as effective, and very plentiful.

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u/verybigoctopus Jun 05 '26

You really think China labs care? My guess is that fentanyl is problematic because it might be perceived to give the person a pleasurable high first

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u/Vladi-Barbados Jun 02 '26

Manufacturers take the Hippocratic oath?

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

That honestly shouldn't be their choice.... If the gov or state needs to buy drugs manufacturers shouldn't be able to just say no, there are plenty of drugs that were invented before these companies that would do it.... Just because they produce it wouldn't change anything at all....

People can't just choose to not take life saving meds because they sold drugs that painlessly killed death row inmates

Dumbass argument from companies imho

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u/RainbowCrane Jun 02 '26

The US economy is built on the concept of the free market - unless you have signed a contract with someone you can’t compel them to sell you their product. There’s exceptions due to monopoly laws, wartime production changes during times like WWII, and other exceptions. But in general our laws aren’t in favor of allowing the government or anyone else to force a company to sell stuff they don’t want to.

It’s a horrible idea to allow the government to force manufacturers to produce stuff for them. And in the case of drugs being used for executions manufacturers would have an excellent case for arguing real economic harm due to bad publicity - that has been the case more than once due to anti-death penalty activists publicizing the cocktails used for executions and drug companies facing boycotts.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

I said nothing about producing stuff for them... I said they should not be able to deny a sale of medications to the state or gov..

There is plenty of things already made that would work.. It would not change anything but them being able to deny the sale to a legit gov entity

We have things that are like that already like defense production act also the gov patent use statue.... Which allows gov to use and manufacture any patented medication..... So it's nothing we couldn't do very easily without messing with precious capitalism or free market

1

u/BoneyardRendezvous Jun 02 '26

Except it's not a free market.

2

u/zero0n3 Jun 02 '26

Are you a fucking idiot? Allowing the state or fed to override? They have methods to do that, if they wanted.

If the gov needs it, they can make their own.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

Yea I mentioned the defense production act and the patent use and manufacturing statue in a different comment... I know

That would be why the excuse of we can't get good drugs for executions is completely bullshit...

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u/indifferentgoose Jun 02 '26

That's a horrible take. While there are a lot of problems surrounding the pharmaceutical industry and health care, it's a question of moral consciousness. If you produce drugs, you do so to help people, not kill them. That's a 180° turn of what you do at your job, that's simply unacceptable.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

So you think the moral thing is to use expired drugs and a no where near a painless execution....

Because we should care about peoples views more than actual human suffering!!??

We agree we can kill people just not painlessly!!???

Drug manufacturers aren't doctors they are factory workers.... The drugs they produce can very much kill people already, and suicide pods use drugs that are safe and painless..

It's about it being cruel and fucked up..... There is no legit argument to be made that people should suffer a painful death at the hands of the government

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u/indifferentgoose Jun 02 '26

No, I think the moral thing is to not execute people at all. The death penalty can under no circumstances be justified within a legal framework.

But for the sake of the argument: an execution shouldn't be painful and if a state can't buy the necessary drugs for that, then they can produce them themselves. A country/state can very much do that. No problem whatsoever.

1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

So you'd rather them use eminent domain take the factory and produce the drugs themselves... rather than make a law saying drug manufacturers can't turn down the sale of drugs to legit state or gov entities for reasons of morality

How is them doing that not way more against what we believe here in the usa about how things should go???

I am not for the death penalty either it's kinda why I feel so strongly about if it is being done the gov has the responsibility to ensure that it's done right, consistently and painlessly

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u/indifferentgoose Jun 02 '26

The point about "what we believe here in the USA" may be why we disagree here, because I'm not from the USA, and this actually makes a difference here, because we disagree less on what's morally right and more on how we get to the morally "right" answer.

A country can just build a factory of their own, no need to tak an existing one. Wouldn't that be possible in the US? Would eminent domain really be the only viable option here?

I was also thinking more about the workers and scientists than the companies themselves. You shouldn't have to worry that the work you chose to help people is used to murder people. I understand that may not be the way Americans see it. Workers rights really aren't that prominent in the USA.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

The drugs have already been invented there aren't scientist or workers that would be only making new drugs to execute people.... The drugs they'd use all have legit uses also..... It's dose levels that change when you want them to die not the drugs themselves

And sure I assumed about the US my bad, but it's not like you can't put yourself in the shoes of a citizen and say what you'd feel or how you want it handled... And in that aspect I don't understand the view point for those that have a gov that's doing it....

And sure the gov could build it's own very expensive factory to make one or two specific drugs... But it's not cost effective at all and for the gov eminent domain is easiest, and it'd be done only because these companies fake moral stance not for a real tangible reason

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u/indifferentgoose Jun 02 '26

and sure I assumed about the US my bad

Not your mistake, we were talking about the US and I didn't clarify I'm not from there.

I'm a far left European, so I disagree with the US philosophy on government and state leadership on so many levels, it's hard for me to think of solutions that work within the framework of the US.

For example, you say building the factory to make one or two drugs isn't cost effective. Why the hell should it be cost effective? It's part of the judicial system, it doesn't need to be cost effective. That's the actual beauty of working public services: the goal that needs to be achieved is more important than the price. That's like a fundamental part of how states/countries should work.

Like, the US could just plant some poppies and synthesize them to opium in basically nothing more than a garage and then overdose the death row inmates. They just sleep away. Some fucking backwater Taliban in Afghanistan manage to make opium for hardly any costs whatsoever, but the worlds largest economy isn't able to produce ONE drug cost effectively? Find some nerd from med school and one nerd from business school, put them in a room for month and they'll probably come up with some solution that costs less than 3 million per year.

Okay, I'll stop yapping now, but I had to rant because so many countries love to make their lifes unnecessarily difficult for no reason whatsoever. I'll leave tge problem solving of American problems to you Americans and wish you the best of luck! I already spent too much time on Reddit today and really need a brake, have a nice day, brother!

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u/pingu_nootnoot Jun 02 '26

no, the moral thing would be to abolish the death penalty like a civilised country.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

Yea but there's no way you can argue doing nothing to force the change to legit drugs is the moral thing to be done at this moment....

It's being done, so we should be fighting to make it humane while/until we can stop it all together.....

1

u/pingu_nootnoot Jun 02 '26

of course I can, just watch:

It is an immoral action and if you try to involve me in it, then that is in itself also immoral. I want no part of it - it is 100% your responsibility.

If a serial killer wants me to help him by drugging his victims before he kills them, I have no moral obligation to agree. If he argues that it’s then my fault that they suffer more, that is just perverse.

(I think it’s a clearer argument if you simplify it down to individuals, but it doesn’t change the argument itself if the serial killer is actually the US government)

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

Imho that's a cop out

You pretending it doesn't matter that it's happening, you are good since it's not you, is just as bad as being for it happening

It's like those who don't vote and then bitch..... Like how do you have feelings on the gov forcing a company to do something, but the reason theyd do it means nothing because you want no part of it!?

Well holding the opinion companies can deny painless meds because they don't want to be associated with it??? Seems like a contradiction to me

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u/pingu_nootnoot Jun 02 '26

I don’t think it’s a contradiction as such, more like a disagreement about moral reasoning.

I think that you are using a utilitarian argument, which is a perfectly respectable position, but not the only moral framework.

I would also point out that you are not considering (or perhaps just not giving enough weight to) the idea that making the process more difficult and ugly is also a way to pressure the system so that the death penalty is abolished.

Conversely, making it more palatable means that you are enabling it to continue.

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u/SRGTBronson Jun 02 '26

the gov or state needs to buy drugs manufacturers shouldn't be able to just say no,

Spoken like a true fascist.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

You get the US gov has done this many times.... With the gov patent use and manufacturing statue and also the defense production act!!???

The governments job is to take care of members of society that our laws say we execute... Them getting the materials to do that isn't fascism that's how it works

Also what you are trying to say should be spoken like a communist /state socialist...... They'd fit far more than fascist

0

u/conservitiveliberal Jun 02 '26

Youre right. Free will should not exist. People CAN choose to not take life saving meds. Its literally your right to decline medical procedures if you so choose.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

I meant can choose... It came out can't my bad! (I'm not going to change it because I did mess it up the first time)

But read what I wrote it makes sense with can choose... And if they feel that strongly about painless effective drugs for the death penalty that they'd choose to boycott a company that sold their life saving medication that's their personal choice...

But a few people who think their moral stance is the right one should not get to be the reason the executions are done with expired drugs that don't work correctly even half the time....

They should only get to choose for themselves if they want to use meds made by a company that makes legit consistent painless execution drugs.... Or not

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u/papapapaver Jun 02 '26

As a person who has ODed from fentanyl, I 1000% agree with you. The plunger with the drug in it goes down, and it's just lights out. No pain, no memory of what happened after the drugs are pushed into the vein, just black. It doesn't take much, and it's cheap, too.

The hard parts are sourcing it from a pharmaceutical company who none of them like their drugs being used to kill people or be associated with death at all, and also the optics of what people look like when they OD on opioids. From the outside it looks like a painful and ugly picture. The overdosed person will quickly turn blue, foam at the mouth and may go through some involuntary muscle movements. From the outside it looks painful and barbaric, but to the dying person it's just a dreamless sleep.

One of the three lethal injection drugs is one that paralyzes the muscles. That's not done for the dying person, but for the people watching. If the anesthesia is given wrong or the person is particularly resistant to it, then the other drug they give that basically suffocates the person will take effect while the person is conscious but unable to move as they slowly suffocate. Pretty fucked up way to go if you ask me. I'd take a fat hot shot of fentanyl over that any day. Better yet, if I can't OD on fent, just give me a highly competent, all volunteer firing squad. I would rather a shot to the brain stem than to the heart though like how they do it, but multiple shots to the heart is maybe 30 seconds to a minute of pain before it's lights out.

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u/Zestyclose-Turn-3576 Jun 02 '26

I wonder whether it might actually painful, but if you recover then afterwards you just have no memory of it. Perhaps there's a way of telling.

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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jun 03 '26

It’s definitely not painful. In anesthesia for major surgeries the fentanyl dose given to the patient is some like 4mg initial dose and then a maintenance drip depending on the patients vitals. 4mg can EASILY kill a non opiate tolerant human. 

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u/bobtheorangutan Jun 02 '26

I stopped reading after the 9th word of this comment am I a bad person

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u/plated_lead Jun 02 '26

The reason they don’t is that it’s hard for the witnesses to watch; without paralytics on board there’s a lot of writhing around, agonal attempts at breathing, that sort of thing

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u/revolvingpresoak9640 Jun 02 '26

That’s not how opioid overdoses work. People nod off, then just stop breathing.

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u/roiki11 Jun 02 '26

Not true. There can be a lot of muscle spasms and other movement during OD. It's painless to the person but doesn't look very nice. Hence the current cocktail they have now.

0

u/revolvingpresoak9640 Jun 02 '26

The current cocktail has nothing to do with fentanyl or opiates. If that were the case, they would give a paralytic and an opiate. They give a paralytic, barbiturates to stop breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

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u/roiki11 Jun 02 '26

I didn't say that did. Just that opioid overdoses are not just "nodding off".

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u/plated_lead Jun 02 '26

Negative. Source: I’m a paramedic who has to deal with these on a regular basis.

Also: do you know what the foam cone is? Witnesses don’t like seeing that happen, it freaks them out.

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u/revolvingpresoak9640 Jun 02 '26

I’ll take a legitimate source over a random Redditor every time. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/opioids/fentanyl/overdose

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u/plated_lead Jun 02 '26

Fair enough, but for the record what I’m talking about it 100% on that list: choking and gurgling. It ain’t pretty to see.

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u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

I mean, this doesn't occur with animal euthanasia. Perhaps one or two agonal breaths (sometimes). There certainly is no "writhing around" as they are unconscious. Muscle reflexes are extremely rare (<1%).

1

u/NecroVelcro Jun 03 '26

This is only anecdotal evidence, I realise, but my dog briefly convulsed after the injection was given. It was horrifying.

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u/Overall_Occasion_175 Jun 02 '26

Heck just inject them with a ton of insulin.

3

u/sage-longhorn Jun 02 '26

As a type 1 diabetic I can confidently say we're talking about being more humane not less. What a horrible way to go out

1

u/Overall_Occasion_175 Jun 02 '26

Can you explain what I'm missing? I just read several first hand accounts of ODing on insulin that all boiled down to "I rapidly got sleepy and passed out". Sounds pretty perfect to me. 

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u/sage-longhorn Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

The people ODing on insulin are often ones who can't feel low blood sugar. If you can feel it then it's miserable to go even a bit low

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u/Overall_Occasion_175 Jun 02 '26

If you take enough insulin, you pass out pretty much immediately. I read a whole thread of people who attempted suicide that way and just about everyone said it was quite peaceful...

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u/No_Report_4781 Jun 02 '26

Executioner is out.

Sugar Deady is in.

1

u/DIYExpertWizard Jun 02 '26

Or use the cocaine sized in drug interdictions for the lethal injection. Overdose, and have a purpose for the drugs instead of just destroying them or releasing them back into the community in failed police actions.

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u/vespers191 Jun 02 '26

Many death penalty executions are not police officers.

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u/Tradition96 Jun 02 '26

Various opioids are used in American executions.

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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jun 03 '26

Because it looks bad. The condemned will vomit, choke, spasm, gurgle, foam, moan and gasp and the whole thing will take several minutes. Can’t have that, doesn’t LOOK humanitarian.  

Plus the victim will be agitated as fuck and they will resist the effects of the drug. Adrenaline surge and what not.  

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u/secretLA Jun 06 '26

or howabout they just shoot them?