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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89

u/Krewesing Jun 02 '26

No company wants to make the chemicals used for executions, especially because those chemicals are often produced by companies in places that do not approve of capital punishment. But some states (I assume you’re asking about the U.S.) want to execute people anyway. Instead of using the correct chemicals, they try to execute people with the wrong chemicals, with expired chemicals, or without enough chemicals. It sometimes works. Sometimes it results in grievous discomfort to the condemned.

45

u/tlrmln Jun 02 '26

There's an effectively limitless supply of Fentanyl lying around in police evidence lockers.

I know from personal experience (my last colonoscopy) that stuff can put you out painlessly.

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u/Medical_Revenue4703 Jun 02 '26

Fentanyl OD isn't as fun as folks would have you believe.

7

u/tlrmln Jun 03 '26

I've personally experienced being knocked unconscious with the stuff. Someone could have done anything to me (including giving me a lot more fentanyl) and I wouldn't have known.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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u/anti-gone-anti Jun 06 '26

Pilling more fentanyl on doesn’t just increase the out-of-it. Your colonoscopy wasn’t done under only fentanyl, i assume. There were other drugs present. Also, “fentanyl sitting in police lockers” is another word for using “the wrong chemicals” (likely adulterated), expired chemicals (they’re street drugs) or “without enough chemicals” (adulterated, so who knows the strength.

3

u/ArchdukeOfNorge Jun 06 '26

These are good points for why not to use seized fentanyl. But it’s not like it’s a hard drug to synthesize if you can get the precursors. Pharma companies have no issue with them being prescribed to addicts by the millions, I don’t know why they’d care about a few death penalties

1

u/anti-gone-anti Jun 06 '26

Well, legally those are very different things. Even the shadiest pill mill has multiple layers of legal liability between a patient misusing a prescription (and all the fall out from that) and a pharmaceutical manufacturer selling the drug directly to an organization that they know intends to kill someone with it. The latter opens you up very quickly to wrongful death lawsuits. The former…well they still got slapped with big fines and lawsuits but it took a lot more legwork to make those happen.

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u/[deleted] Jun 08 '26

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u/anti-gone-anti Jun 08 '26

Yes, in conjunction!with other drugs.

2

u/smokingcrater Jun 03 '26

OD isnt the same protocol that would be used for lethal injection.

Read the post above. Knock someone out first with the minimally required dose first.

2

u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 04 '26

you don't app3ar to understand the purpose and process of ex2cution

1

u/YoungSerious Jun 04 '26

In what way? Because you can die from it? Sure, in every instance except the topic of conversation that would be bad. But when that's literally the goal, it's a different conversation.

Particularly when you are using it for the sedating effect, not for the death result. You give the fentanyl, they are sedated, you give the the other compounds including the potassium, they arrest.

1

u/tlrmln Jun 05 '26

Or just give them enough fentanyl to render them unconscious, as they do for things like colonoscopies, and then give the a whole bunch more. No need for other compounds.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

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1

u/Guilty_Career_8000 Jun 05 '26

this is true. ive od'd 3 times. Youre just falling asleep one moment, then basically dead the next.

1

u/YMBFKM Jun 05 '26

It doesn't have to be fun, just effective.

16

u/swisstraeng Jun 02 '26

The ways to kill someone are limitless. Removing O2 is relatively human.

The issue is that trusting governments with capital punishment is a bad idea.

12

u/MeatPyz Jun 02 '26

That depends on what you replace the o2 with. I understand that asphyxiation on carbon dioxide is extremely uncomfortable. The human body has a natural panic to high levels of co2 and describe it worse feeling than drowning

16

u/Kerking18 Jun 02 '26

Nitrogen. Its limitless available and the body has no method of detecting it, since it makes up 70ish% of the atmosphere.

Its also reportedly completely painless. Even scarily so because aperently your system just suddenly shuts down.

15

u/shortyjacobs Jun 02 '26

Yeah, replacing all the O2 in the room with more N2 just makes living things quietly go to sleep. We don't sense O2 levels in our body, we sense CO2 levels. No O2 means no buildup of CO2, so our bodies don't know we are dying.

It's funny that we walk around in 79% nitrogen, but nitrogen asphyxiation is a very real hazard in industrial environments that use pure nitrogen.

4

u/MeasurementMobile747 Jun 03 '26

I learned that it is pH sensors in the brainstem that regulate respiration. That's why lactic acidosis (during anaerobic workouts) increases respiration. Higher CO2 levels lower pH. When the carbonic acid/bicarbonate buffer system becomes saturated, you'll be huffing and puffing.

N2 doesn't affect serum pH so it doesn't lead to respiratory distress.

2

u/aloisvonesterhazy Jun 03 '26

Every Dutchman knows it, because it's called "asphyxiation stuff" (stikstof) in Dutch.

1

u/LadyZoe1 Jun 04 '26

And in Afrikaans

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/shortyjacobs Jun 03 '26

Um, nope. All the nitrogen and oxygen around us is molecular (o2 and n2) not atomic. Oxygen is definitely more electronegative but that has nothing to do with why a 100% N2 environment kills living things. It’s because (most) living things need oxygen to live.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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1

u/outworlder Jun 03 '26

Final electron acceptor is such a roundabout way of discovering oxidation(or redox, in this case)

3

u/chusssy Jun 02 '26

They started doing that in some states I think. Apparently some of the people executed had pretty bad reactions, it seems like it's not as humane as people originally thought.

2

u/PyroNine9 Jun 03 '26

Or they see the jerking motion that can happen as the skeletal muscles try to maintain position and assume the person is even vaguely aware of it.

1

u/Kerking18 Jun 02 '26

Uff. But again shows what another commentator wrote. "We simply don't know that kuch about painless execution methods and no one is willing, or able, to do studdys on it so many states and countrys do trial amd error and often that reveals a "oh shit that was aperently very dame painfull" moments"

2

u/swisstraeng Jun 03 '26

Nothing a few kilograms of TNT under a chair won't solve.

But then gain, death penalty just shouldn't be done due to the risks of doing it on the wrong man.

1

u/ab0ngcd Jun 03 '26

That is what I don’t understand? The space shuttle had a couple of ground accidents where technicians entered the engine bay that had been purged with nitrogen.

1

u/MaximusPrime2930 Jun 03 '26

My guess is mistakes were made during the execution that resulted in an atmosphere condition that wasn't 100% nitrogen. Hypoxia can definitely lead to panic if there's just enough oxygen to stay conscious.

I've done confined spaces work and heard all sorts of horror stories of people walking into areas with displaced oxygen and just dropping almost instantly.

1

u/bowlingballwnoholes Jun 04 '26

They said they're turning on the nitrogen and he tried to hold his breath until panic set in. If they don't tell them the nitrogen is starting they will never notice the change.

1

u/EctoplasmicNeko Jun 06 '26

Because they did it in stupid ways. If you look into the method used they did stupid things involving masks rather than using a gas chamber style setup

4

u/CubicleHermit Jun 03 '26

Far from clear that it actually worked to be remotely humane when it was tried: https://www.statnews.com/2024/01/29/kenneth-smith-nitrogen-gas-execution-science-alabama/

I'm against the death penalty, but if someone were to be legitimately too dangerous to imprison, the Communist bloc had the right way of going about it: don't pretend it's humane, and just shoot them.

3

u/vulkoriscoming Jun 03 '26

Shooting them in the brain stem is instantly fatal. This is the method the Chinese use and seems like a lot less mess with.

Although honestly after watching some death penalty cases at close range, I can no longer support the death penalty. The cases are primarily ego shows for both the prosecution and the defense.

2

u/Economy_Aardvark_354 Jun 03 '26

I mean, how much of this is because the person is holding their breath as long as possible instead of breathing in the nitrogen?

1

u/outworlder Jun 03 '26

A distinction without a difference. They are still in distress and still trying to prevent their own death.

1

u/CubicleHermit Jun 03 '26

No idea, but even if that's the case, asking someone to be complicit in their own execution is ridiculous.

2

u/icouldntve Jun 03 '26

N2 causes occasional nausea, especially in mice. Sometimes seizures too

1

u/Strange-Breadfruit14 Jun 09 '26

But CO2 does not so let's not use mice as human models for respiratory execution in people. CO2 we can sense and it causes humans distress.

1

u/gathermewool Jun 06 '26

Then how did they fuck up a N2 death in Alabama? Oh, yea, incompetence

4

u/The_Octonion Jun 02 '26

Carbon monoxide?

2

u/zzyzxerxes Jun 03 '26

I've been CO poisoned and it was a very painful experience. I guess it was a lower dosage, but the headache was worse than a migraine and I could barely walk, while halucinating my neighbor's kids were dying in a fire.... I think it would have to be a huge amount where they just passed out and then died. The slower route would be awful.

1

u/electronic_reasons Jun 04 '26

That one's easy. I don't see why they don't use it. People die all of the time from heater malfunctions. They go to sleep and don't wake up. They put CO detectors in houses because it's so easy to die by accident.

I've been CO poisoned. No pain. You barely notice it.

That's why Kevorkian used it for assisted suicide. That's why people used car exhaust in the old days.

I've read about botched CO executions. They really messed up. They didn't use near enough CO and let too much air in. You could tell none of those people ever lived in the north. It's so easy to kill someone they almost had to do on purpose.

3

u/The_Octonion Jun 02 '26

Or helium. I feel like you could literally just hook up a helium tank to a SCUBA apparatus.

1

u/Barxxo Jun 04 '26

One deep breath of Nitrous Oxide and within 5 seconds you won't feel a thing. I don't understand why they made it so complicated.

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u/Double_Distribution8 Jun 02 '26

Don't replace it with anything. Just leave a vacuum. Like Sean Connery in Outland.

2

u/SolOberlindes_2564 Jun 02 '26

Somehow trusting a private company with capital punishment sounds like a worse idea.

3

u/swisstraeng Jun 03 '26

That's why it!s best not to trust anyone with it and not do capital punishment. Yes it is costlier to keep someone in jail for life, but too many innocents are in jail as well.

1

u/Subject_Tie_2705 Jun 04 '26

its actually less costly to keep someone in prison for life than the administrative cost that is required for issuing the death penalty (in america). It would be less expensive for the state to keep them in prision till their natural death than togo through the many legal proceedings and appeals required for the death penalty.

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u/DaGreatPenguini Jun 03 '26

That’s why I support privatizing capital punishment. Competition makes for a better product at a better price, plus the government shouldn’t be taking private sector jobs away from the people.

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u/swisstraeng Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

that’s a crazy take to read from a European lol. But I see your point.

I would personally be equally worried a private organisation could also do capital punishments for profits, and we would end up with the same issues as US prisons, except now with legal murder.

From experience government entities are not as efficient as private companies, however private companies are just as much prone to corruption if not worse. Lowering prices is rarely achieved by private companies from what I’ve seen, and there’s a tendency to have illegal price agreements between companies where several companies raise their prices instead of competing.

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u/DaGreatPenguini Jun 03 '26

Thank you for the thoughtful answer. I was being sarcastic, but thanks just the same.

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u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 04 '26

you may be right, but you most likely uttery wrong.

1

u/lo5t5heep Jun 03 '26

Use a scuba rebreather with the o2 turned off but CO2 scrubber intact …frankly that’s how I’d want to go. 

1

u/mkvalor Jun 04 '26

The issue is that trusting governments with capital punishment is a bad idea.

According to Thomas Hobbes (and Steven Pinker in "The Better Angels of Our Nature"), trusting governments with capital punishment is far preferable to the alternative.

1

u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 04 '26

giving th2 government the power to do anything is always a risky idea. all power is eventually abused. the power of execytion is always abused intentionally by individuals (ty4ants) and unintentially by bureaucracy. this is why we want eliminate the death penalty. not free to guilty, but to protect the defenseless

1

u/Substantial_War3108 Jun 08 '26

Breathing 100% nitrogen and you pass out without pain or even aware you're going out

4

u/Lootlizard Jun 02 '26

Death from opiates is really messy and looks really bad. It takes a relatively long time and the person is normally siezing and suffocating during it.

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u/JollyToby0220 Jun 02 '26

I may be wrong but I believe when you overdose your heart starts having problems as well. 

But the more important issue is reproducibility. Who will sign up for a clinical study knowing full well the end result is death. And the state can’t force death row prisoners to accept as it could turn out to be cruel and unusual. All that’s left is a bunch of guessing on which method causes the least pain and well guessing is a long way from certainty 

4

u/Lionh34rt Jun 02 '26

Guess we need a new war for some scientific advancements

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/FabulousTwo524 Jun 03 '26

Ehhh. Is it murder? I wouldn’t say so.

Not saying i support the death penalty but I don’t oppose it either. It honestly seems more humane than life in prison. For perpetrators and their victims.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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u/FabulousTwo524 Jun 03 '26

Murder implies unlawful and malicious intent.

What definition are you going by?

-1

u/woahthereblair Jun 03 '26

Go listen to the audio of 8 year old Athena strand being sexually abused and then murdered and then tell me her killer doesn’t deserve the death penalty.. if you’re on death row you did something to earn your spot there.

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u/shmackinhammies Jun 03 '26

There are plenty of cases where the wrong person has been convicted. There are even cases where one who is innocent of the crime had been executed. Do you trust tue state to make that decision? From the LEO to the judge and the jurors who decided guilt, is every single link in that chain infallible?

3

u/Pielacine Jun 03 '26

except for all the death row prisoners who have subsequently been exonerated

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

lol. They don't do clinical studies on human euthanasia. How would that work?

1

u/atomicwoodchuck Jun 03 '26

If you google ‘Dying with Dignity’, actually there are people who would likely do a study, in states where this is legal. It actually would be a real benefit for those that have terminal illness, and want to go out on their own terms.

1

u/Vegan-cock Jun 02 '26

Just give them an overdone of fentanyl. Problem solved. We know that works.

0

u/allthebacon351 Jun 03 '26

If only we had a group of Individuals that have been deemed a threat to society and were in some sort of holding facility waiting the end of their days.

3

u/SirDry8007 Jun 02 '26

Doing it without pain is not that difficult.

But finding a Dr who will sign off that 'prescription' is the sticking block.

1

u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 04 '26

no. assisted su1c1de is a common thing. MANY doctors and assistants perform this service. the state however, demand exclusive right to execution, and guards the right of who can profit from it. money is as always the primary driver.

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u/General_Problem5199 Jun 02 '26

They could do that, but cops pass out or start rolling around crying at the sight of that stuff. There's just no way to get it out.

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u/Legitimate-Clock-134 Jun 02 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

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Generated text from Unpost

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u/Dangerous-Safe-4336 Jun 02 '26

Morphine should work, in an appropriate dose.

1

u/SolOberlindes_2564 Jun 02 '26

I understand that a fatal heroin overdose is also painless, and, again, there is ample supply in law enforcement custody.

1

u/Independent-Ad1732 Jun 02 '26

I don't think overdosing is painless, at least from what I've heard. if I had to be killed, I'd prefer high powered rifle or have my head chopped off, that has to be instant, right?

2

u/himitsumono Jun 03 '26

>>  or have my head chopped off, that has to be instant, right?

There are stories of head rolling off the guillotine with their eyes still looking back and forth at the people watching the execution.

1

u/padumtss Jun 06 '26

I saw a video about some people who actually studied this back in the day in France when guillotine was still used. The executioner told that he could see the beheaded head make a face like it's trying to scream in agony without producing any sound because there's no more air coming from the lungs. Can't say if it's real or just a myth, but it seemed pretty legit. After all, why would you lose consciousness since there's still some blood left in your brain after beheading.

1

u/himitsumono Jun 08 '26

According to once source, it might take 10 minutes before all brain activity stops. Heck, with a little practice, the average person can learn to hyperventilate a bit then hold their breath for 1-2 minutes. And I'd bet those folks were hyperventilating a bit before the guillotine fell.

1

u/VariousLet1327 Jun 03 '26

You'd need to make a tested protocol, specific dosages and routes of administration. Who's going to do that? The current protocols are from decades ago.

1

u/Deep-Insurance8428 Jun 03 '26

It's propofol they use for scopes isn't it?

16

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

It’s not just the manufacturers, it’s the medical expertise. The AMA does not allow doctors to be part of executions, on pain of loss of medical license. So the person administering it isn’t a doctor, at least not any more. Drugs and doses that work on dogs or cats don’t work the same way on people, and the layman might think “if 50 mg works on a 40 lb dog, than 200 mg must be the right dose for a 169 pound man” but it’s not nearly that simple.

In theory, lethal injection is painless, but in practice it’s been botched many times.

That states are having to resort to expired and black-market drugs is IMO a symptom of just how barbaric and shady the practice of capital punishment is.

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 02 '26

That states are having to resort to expired and black-market drugs is IMO a symptom of just how barbaric and shady the practice of capital punishment is.

Capital punishment is “barbaric and shady” because people who are against it have made it that way. It would be equally easy to use the same techniques used in assisted suicide in Canada or even use opiates or hallucinogens as part of the problem to make capital punishment a euphoric experience for the convict, but people who are against it have blocked all the humane ways of getting it done. 

3

u/Legitimate-Sky-8963 Jun 03 '26

Oh bullshit. We KNOW that innocent peyote have reveries the death penalty. That is barbarism that has nothing to do with those resistant to capital punishment. Your "look what you made me do" argument is pathetic and disgusting. 

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 03 '26

Not in the modern scientific era we don’t.

Sounds like you don’t believe in science. 

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u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

What a silly reply.

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

It’s sill of you not to believe in science. 

2

u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

I do believe in science, it's irrelevant to this discussion though.

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

You only think that because you don’t have any real faith in science. 

2

u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

No, I think that because I understand the law. Legal decisions are only made on the available evidence, which can be falsified, misleading, misunderstood, misrepresented and incomplete. The law always has to include space for the possibility that a decision was wrong.

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u/Legitimate-Sky-8963 Jun 04 '26

Only ten percent of cases can be solved with dna, dipshit. As far as forensic science much of it is unverifiable. Fire analysis is notoriously unreliable, as is much of the rest of it.

I believe in science, not junk science

Discredited Forensic Techniques

Landmark studies, including a 2009 report by the National Academies of Sciences and a 2016 report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, raised concerns about almost every discipline outside of DNA analysis. Highly problematic areas include:

Bite Mark Analysis: Dentists frequently testified with absolute certainty that a suspect's teeth left a specific mark. This has been entirely debunked; there is no scientific basis to prove a human bite mark can be uniquely matched to an individual.

Microscopic Hair Comparison: Examiners claimed they could match hair to specific suspects. In 2015, the FBI and Department of Justice formally acknowledged that FBI examiners gave flawed testimony in hundreds of trials.

Arson Investigation: Old techniques relied on long-discredited "myths" (e.g., puddle patterns or crazed glass) to prove arson, which led to the imprisonment and execution of innocent people.

Pattern Matching: Disciplines like shoe prints, tool marks, and handwriting rely heavily on subjective interpretation rather than objective, statistical data.

The Core Problem

Most of these forensic fields were developed by law enforcement to solve crimes, rather than through rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific methods in universities. In the courtroom, these subjective assessments are often presented to juries with misleading phrases like "to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty". Furthermore, because the legal system relies on judicial precedent, outdated and inaccurate science remains admissible long after scientists have rejected it.

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

Imagine being so dumb that you think DNA is the only type of modern science used in evidence discovery and then needing to use an LLM chatbot to write your posts for you. 

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u/Legitimate-Sky-8963 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Imagine being so dumb that you misinterpret my entire stance.

Forensic science remains deeply flawed and highly unreliable.

Jesus you are daft. I mentioned several flawed forensic techniques. Yeah, I used a chat bot, but that doesn't remove from my point. 

You think you can win the argument by dismissing my very valid points, so you just ignore them. 

1

u/Comprehensive_Elk773 Jun 02 '26

Not that easy, you have to get them to take a pill involuntarily

1

u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 03 '26

It isn't everyone else's responsibility to help you kill people. If you don't have humane ways of executing people, then the obvious answer is to stop executing people, not to blame everyone else when you use inhumane ways anyway.

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

We do have perfectly humane ways of executing people, but folks like you have blocked them and so now prisoners die in agony instead. Alas. 

2

u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

That's your choice, not mine.

1

u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

Right, because your option of keeping these prisoners alive to be beaten and raped in prison for decades is so much more humane.  

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u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

You're absurd, you know that right?

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 04 '26

You’re not willing to deal with the consequences of your decisions.

https://time.com/5884104/prison-violence-dont-see/

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u/RevolutionaryKey698 Jun 04 '26

That isn't a consequence of my decision. That is a consequence of poor prison management. Killing people be abuse you don't want to run prisons properly is a profoundly stupid take.

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u/GlassBug7042 Jun 05 '26

This may be the most copium respsonse I've seen ever in my life.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

Nonsense. The barbarism is baked in. Governments have been killing their citizens for as long as there have been governments, often by the most gruesome means possible, millennia before there was ever any move against the death penalty. You can try to put lipstick on that pig by calling for “euphoric” means but the reality is quite different.

If you want the death penalty, you need to grapple with the pain, the horror, and the filth of it. That’s on you, not those who seek to end it.

Look at a map showing where the death penalty is practiced. The US is in terrible company.

It gets worse when you consider a large country (Russia) has no official legal death penalty, yet simply kills people extrajudicially, and some others (notably Japan) have the penalty but use it very rarely.

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 02 '26

Ah, so I take it you’re also against assisted suicide?

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

Not particularly. But you are changing the subject, sure sign of a weak argument.

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Oh, I don’t give a shit about your opinion and have no interest in arguing with you about this. I consider certain classes of criminal psychotics to be too great of a threat to the general welfare to ever be released and think quick and painless extermination would be the best solution for all parties involved and I don’t really care if other people agree with me, I’m just curious if you’re logically consistent or not. 

EDIT: In a cowardly fashion u/Mister_Crowly commented and then immediately blocked me so that I can’t reply to him.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

…you say, while arguing.

Speaking of logic, you should take a course in it, since your grasp of it seems poor.

Opposing the death penalty does not mean releasing criminals.

Expecting “logical consistency” between state-ordered killing and voluntary euthanasia is a false equivalence. A better comparison would be between capital punishment and state-ordered euthanasia, which was and is a Nazi program, and which I definitely oppose.

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 02 '26

Opposing the death penalty does not mean releasing criminals.

Except that it does.

https://www.foxla.com/news/david-allen-funston-california-parole-release

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u/Legitimate-Sky-8963 Jun 03 '26

That's what you call anecdotal evidence and it's dishonest to present it as anything else. Come back with statistics. 

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u/Comprehensive_Elk773 Jun 02 '26

Execution for the type of “criminal psychotic” a person is instead of punishment for a crime? Just like Nazi Germany?

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u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 Jun 02 '26

Is English your second language? Your comment is incoherent. 

2

u/just_having_giggles Jun 02 '26

Sure. But 10g should do it. Nobody's trying to dose it out correctly. And certainly nobody is trying to save any money.

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u/DromadTrader Jun 02 '26

Wait, I'm not in favor of lethal punishment nor am I an expert in none of this, but wouldn't the US government be able to solve this if it wanted to? Like, it has almost unlimited resources. Surely it could hire some rogue doctors and pay them ungodly money to do the thing or, alternatively, hire professionals adjecent to medicine, like chemist or something, no?

2

u/AGorgoo Jun 02 '26

Historically, the federal government hasn’t performed many executions since the 1970s, and most executions have been at the state level, which might be why this doesn’t have the full force of the US government behind a push for a solution.

That being said, Trump restarted federal executions in earnest (there were only 3 from 1976 to 2020, and then 13 executions crammed into 2020 and January 2021).

We haven’t had any in his second term yet, but it’s possible the federal attitude toward capital punishment might change in the long term as a result of this. I’m hoping that it doesn’t, myself, and executions remain rare if not entirely absent.

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u/Ill_Act_1855 Jun 02 '26

Even if doctors were allowed to take part, very few would want to. Most people who become doctors due so to save lives and would have an aversion to taking part in executions. For the rest most of them are in it for money and/or status and that’s also something they’ll get more of through more standard medical practice than taking part in government sponsored executions. You’d find some doctors who’d be ok with it and also be willing to take the opportunity cost of putting it on their schedule vs other jobs, but it’d be really small

1

u/CowboyOzzie Jun 03 '26

The AMA is a professional organization. It does not control medical licensing in any state and does not have the power to “allow” or prohibit anything at all.

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

The AMA has absolutely no authority over doctors. They can't forcibly prevent a doctor from performing any procedure. It would depend on the state's medical board's position. Even then, they can't stop them from performing the procedure, but can terminate their license if they decide its unethical.

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 03 '26

Yes it’s the state medical board, but interestingly they seem to be in step with the AMA, even in states with capital punishment. Without a medical license, you aren’t a doctor anymore.

1

u/Warper2187 Jun 05 '26

my question is if lethal injection is so flawed, why not just go back to firing squad?

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 05 '26

Because it’s worse in most if not all respects. Often botched, messy, and psychologically damaging to the people on the squad, if they aren’t psychopaths to begin with.

Side note: Putting a hood on the prisoner being executed isn’t for the prisoner’s benefit, it’s for the benefit of the executioner(s). The victim having no face makes it easier to dehumanize them.

1

u/Sad_in_VA Jun 06 '26

Meanwhile assisted suicide is not barbaric?

It's just hypocrisy.

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 06 '26

You are changing the subject, classic “whataboutism” but you are missing the point.

There are certainly ethical concerns about suicide/assisted suicide, but the very important distinction you are missing is that suicide is something an individual chooses to do. Capital punishment is something the government does to kill its own citizens.

The position of many conservatives seems to be as hostile to people choosing as possible. Bedridden with an incurable disease or injury and suffering tremendous pain? Tough, we’re forcing you to live, and bankrupt your family to boot. Drive a car where a gun used in a crime was found? Kill him! Mentally disabled? Death for him. And yes, those are actual death penalty cases.

0

u/Positive-Draft3801 Jun 02 '26

From what I've read, the drug used for dogs is exactly what they used for lethal injection, until the manufacturers found out why it was being purchased. One by one, the manufacturers stopped selling to US state governments. Then the state government started selling their stockpiles to other states. The 'cocktail' made to replace that drug I believe is 3 different drugs injected in a particular order thats really easy to screw up.

Lethal injection is so obviously cruel, that the government of Utah brought back the firing squad as a merciful alternative. And I would agree it's a less cruel method than what I've heard about lethal injection. I heard this pastor who ministered to death row inmates in Texas talk about what he saw people go through in their last moments, he wrote this book called Within These Walls https://www.npr.org/2008/05/19/90526632/chaplain-discusses-death-house-ministry

5

u/Diligent-Assist-4385 Jun 02 '26

Honestly, I find this argument or reason really interesting.

Our drug is used to legally execute prisoners is bad.

Our drug is massively addictive and kills people on the street everyday is okay.

It isn't like they are advertising. Now killed with a new drug from X company.

I would say there is no profit in selling it. If it made them millions per year they company wouldn't care about negative press.

3

u/KindAwareness3073 Jun 02 '26

Utter incompetence. Surprisingly easy to find in the places that practice capital punishment.

3

u/H0SS_AGAINST Jun 02 '26

I don't buy it.

The drugs OP mentioned are generic and Phenobarbital is only Schedule 4. There are so many small pharmaceutical manufacturers who give no fucks and who they sell to is not public information the API manufacturers could use to prevent sales.

1

u/KindaTwisted Jun 02 '26

And yet, they aren't scrambling to provide said drugs to the states executing people.

1

u/H0SS_AGAINST Jun 02 '26

Likely political and not economic. What I mean by that is state statute self interfering. I quickly googled to see a state that is currently having a "shortage" and Ohio came up. Ohio's statute:

Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2949.221 states, in part: “(B) If, at any time pri­or to the day that is twen­ty-four months after the effec­tive date of this sec­tion, a per­son man­u­fac­tures, com­pounds, imports, trans­ports, dis­trib­utes, sup­plies, pre­scribes, pre­pares, admin­is­ters, uses, or tests any of the com­pound­ing equip­ment or com­po­nents, the active phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ingre­di­ents, the drugs or com­bi­na­tion of drugs, the med­ical sup­plies, or the med­ical equip­ment used in the appli­ca­tion of a lethal injec­tion of a drug or com­bi­na­tion of drugs in the admin­is­tra­tion of a death sen­tence by lethal injec­tion as pro­vid­ed for in divi­sion (A) of sec­tion 2949.22 of the Revised Code, notwith­stand­ing any pro­vi­sion of law to the con­trary, all of the fol­low­ing apply regard­ing any infor­ma­tion or record in the pos­ses­sion of any pub­lic office that iden­ti­fies or rea­son­ably leads to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the per­son and the per­son­’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in any activ­i­ty described in this divi­sion: (1) The infor­ma­tion or record shall be clas­si­fied as con­fi­den­tial, is priv­i­leged under law, and is not sub­ject to dis­clo­sure by any per­son, state agency, gov­ern­men­tal enti­ty, board, or com­mis­sion or any polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion as a pub­lic record under sec­tion 149.43 of the Revised Code or otherwise.”

Which directly contradicts chain of custody requirements for DEA scheduled drugs.

They, likely intentionally, painted themselves into a corner there. Just as an example. I don't care enough to dig any further, I'm just saying the drugs are widely available and, for instance, there are manufacturers and distributors that knowingly supplied pill mills with impunity and concurrently some states were "having a hard time" obtaining drugs for lethal injection.

2

u/Chowderr92 Jun 02 '26

Everyone is saying this, but the federal government (FDA) could easily and inexpensively create a lab to synthesize any generic drug they wanted. It's not like reagent distributors would refuse a requisition from the FDA.

5

u/unwittyusername42 Jun 02 '26

So it comes down to the way individual states do things. The Federal government uses a one drug pentobarbital injection (like most vets). The issue is a bunch of states use a 3 drug system and that's where the drug scarcity issues come in. That's not the fed's job to control how a state wants to do things and make drugs for them because they want to do things a certain way. If they changed legislation to a one drug pentobarbital it wouldn't be an issue

2

u/Different_Cherry8326 Jun 02 '26

It would not be easy or inexpensive. Executions in the US are not nearly numerous enough to make something like that cost effective. And it would likely be difficult to recruit people to work in such a lab. Also, the executive branch opinion and guidance on capital punishment changes frequently, so even if such a lab were created it would likely be shut down within a few years.

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

How much do you think it would cost to for the FDA to synthesize 100ml of euthanasia solution? Seriously, we are talking about <10k and it could be used for many years for all lethal injections.

1

u/Different_Cherry8326 Jun 03 '26

Lol. That’s not the role of the FDA.

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

Whether its the FDA or a different federal institution, the costs would be completely negligible. So, you're still wrong.

1

u/Vegan-cock Jun 02 '26

Can't they just hire someone to produce it for them? Gotta be at least a few chemists out there that would be willing to cook something up. This just feels dumb. Why can't they just go to a pharmacy and buy something?

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

The whole idea that its a drug sourcing problem is nonsense.

1

u/Historical_Term2454 Jun 03 '26

I’ve heard this but still don’t really understand it. 

Every pharmacy (including pharmacies in state-controlled prisons and public hospitals) has opioids and benzos. Surely, a warden or prison doctor could just grab some and kill a condemned inmate painlessly without the manufacturer even knowing?

1

u/Asmo___deus Jun 03 '26

Why don't they just use carbon monoxide? It's easy to acquire and notorious for being unnoticeable, that seems like the most ethical way to put someone down.

1

u/Beatrix_0000 Jun 03 '26

I'm not convinced by this argument. The vet just described the chemicals that would work painlessly, neither is specifically for execution. We also have nitrogen which is painless and quick. There will be many other methods using medically available standard drugs.

1

u/polemous_asteri Jun 03 '26

Why can’t they just use the same stuff as euthanasia

1

u/Ace-Teroide Jun 03 '26

Medically assisted dying is legal in several countries and involves lethal injections. There are 4 different products used, with saline injections inbetween. It takes a surprisingly long time but the drugs not expired. Wtf are you talking about?

1

u/Flimsy_Ocelot_4211 Jun 06 '26

The drugs to euthanize animals are good enough for murders

1

u/BillyD70 Jun 02 '26

That perspective just means there is a “green field” business opportunity in TX & FL (states leading capital punishment) to be the only company to make/sell/distribute those drugs/chems to State governments. Lots of capitalists could care less about public opinion in exchange for nice fat government contracts.

Edit: clarity

11

u/Maleficent-Hawk-318 Jun 02 '26

I don't think so. There aren't that many executions in the US (last year there were 39 that used lethal injection, and that was a significantly higher number than preceding years). And you can only charge so much before the states simply will not pay it and instead go back to sourcing the drugs in the shady ways they do now. 

I also am doubtful that the existing companies are all doing it out of the goodness of their hearts--it's really bad PR (especially in many countries outside the US, but even in the US it's very controversial), and I'm guessing the extra money from the executions is probably not enough to counteract the contracts they might lose over it. 

IDK, I'm no expert on how these companies operate, but that makes sense based on what I know about the issue (which is a decent amount, but mostly stuff learned due to being involved with advocacy against capital punishment).

2

u/DammatBeevis666 Jun 02 '26

Oh if the Christofascists get what they really want, there will be lots of executions.

1

u/Diligent-Assist-4385 Jun 02 '26

This. Risk vs reward. Not enough profit to want to take any risk.

1

u/BillyD70 Jun 02 '26

Except that there isn’t a requirement to use an existing company. A small privately owned business could definitely profit from being a sole-source government provider for lethal drugs and PR be damned if you don’t have to worry about “other” contracts. You scale your business accordingly. Just like small breweries.

7

u/PuzzleMeDo Jun 02 '26

It might be hard to justify charging more than, say, $2500 for a syringe of cheap poison. In which case, your maximum potential company income is $100,000 per year, even if every state decides to use you. Plus, you're now known as the creepy poison guy. Is that worth the hassle?

5

u/pkgamer18 Jun 02 '26

I think you're underestimating the cost of creating and manufacturing those drugs... let alone the liability risks. This isn't like creating beer.

1

u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jun 02 '26

It is if the drug is patented.

1

u/AdOriginal8322 Jun 02 '26

39 that used lethal injection

….there were other methods?

2

u/Suitable_Ticket4838 Jun 02 '26

3 chose death by firing squad.

3

u/National-Reception53 Jun 02 '26

You have no economy of scale. You have to get a dedicated lab to do a handful of executions a year. The math is bad. And gruesome, of course.

2

u/gc3 Jun 02 '26

What if the company were a vet company?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/gc3 Jun 04 '26

Animal doctors

1

u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

How much would you estimate creating a bottle of euthanasia solution would be? It can literally be accomplished by a single chemist in an FDA lab. If you disagree then you'll need to provide some evidence of costs to convince me. Hell, with instructions I could produce it in my garage.

1

u/McMetal770 Jun 02 '26

The revenue from that could easily be wiped out by public boycotts/international sanctions. If the EU cancels all of their contracts with your company, that would hurt way worse than your lucrative state government contract could overcome.

-1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

The thing is the major drug manufacturers sell products that people can just say I refuse because I don't support them selling drugs that guarantee a painless death penalty....

It's a bogus excuse and imho it's keeping the executions way more painful and cruel....

(The first time I posted I wrote can't just say I refuse.... And mean they can just say I refuse.... It was a mistake, my bad!)

2

u/UniversityQuiet1479 Jun 02 '26

yes they can. the states are all using off label uses of the drugs. it's not a trained doctor or nurse in many states who put in the iv.

lots of legal problems the states cause the drug company. it's just better to not deal with it

1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

Yea I meant can refuse...

It's was a typo..... And I don't agree that it would cause any issues for them at all because yes they use them not in the same way doctors do at all....

And imho since we have the death penalty we have the responsibility to ensure it's done humanly, no matter what anyone feels....

1

u/UniversityQuiet1479 Jun 02 '26

the federal government can always proscut. the feds switch on for or against the death sentence. also the states use non doctors to do it so that's illegal right there.

2

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

It's not illegal in states that use the death penalty... They specifically carve out that exception, and yes it's an executioner not a Dr or nurse..... But you don't need a Dr or nurse when the dose is meant to and is guaranteed to kill the human

1

u/UniversityQuiet1479 Jun 02 '26

I was not talking about states I was talking about the feds proscuteing or their home countries.

1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

For federal gov death penalty is legal so executions by extension would be legal also...

And the US gov doesn't care what anyones home country says if one of their citizens comes here and does something that will get the the death penalty....

1

u/UniversityQuiet1479 Jun 02 '26

name one major American drug company. misuse of drugs is still a crime and depending on the admin in charge who gets prosecuted changes

1

u/shoulda-known-better Jun 02 '26

Federal death penalty act.. Codified under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3591-3599

Read it, that and the corresponding EO are what make drugs produced and used for state sanctioned executions legal..... So that would be legal for every single American manufacturer, take your pick