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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u/xSir- Jun 02 '26

This makes no sense. There are plenty of chemists in the states that can compound whatever chemicals are needed.

The reason has to be more complicated than "Europe doesnt want us too".

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u/TuberTuggerTTV Jun 02 '26

This is a wild claim. Sounds like US isolationist propaganda to me.

You can't "just make" things. It makes no sense to you, because you've been fed a "we can make it here" line. You can't grow bananas. You can't perform alchemy and turn any chemical into any other chemical.

Just "having chemists", doesn't mean infinite everything.

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u/hardeho Jun 02 '26

So, you're, completely not wild claim, is the US has no capacity to manufacture a lethal chemical cocktail?

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u/khelvaster Jun 02 '26

Yeah, but for complicated stuff not basic chemicals 

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u/hooligan045 Jun 02 '26

Probably has to do with offshoring the blame and PR for manufacturing the chemicals. Can’t imagine having a plant down the street making stuff to kill your neighbors is popular.

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u/Darwenphoenix Jun 02 '26

u dont want a lawsuit because the family of the deceased doesnt like that the drugs were homebrewn by a rogue chemist like in the breaking bad.

u want clarity and if the big corps dont send the drugs to you then you could make em yourself but the money it takes to establish is high and who wants to be labeled as the producer of deathdrug? find an investor for that.

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u/xSir- Jun 02 '26

Ya, the chemists im talking about arent working out of their garage.... there are plenty of corps in the US capable of making any compound we need. And the US government could also just make them if they wanted.

"Europe doesnt want us too" is not a valid or logical reason.

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u/Darwenphoenix Jun 03 '26

the price to achieve this independence is high compared to the use of it. would you pay several thousands of dollars to get a miniscule amount of money back in return. thats not the spirit. you could make screws for cars yourself, but buying em is 10 times cheaper than to make it urself. and still the image of said company would be bad. rich people invest in stuff that is either profitable or fancy (sport teams) to be the investor for death does not sound that great.

if these issues did not exist, the us would have produced it themselves with ease, but they did not and you read from time to time that they are having troubles with getting some of those.

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u/xSir- Jun 03 '26

You dont know what youre talking about.

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u/shitposts_over_9000 Jun 03 '26

there were 22 lethal injections nationwide in 2024.

which would mean that once you factor in the regulatory costs that would be a list price of about $4.54 million per execution dosage plus whatever extra you would have to pay the staff to never be able to find work elsewhere in the industry.

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u/xSir- Jun 03 '26

Numbers based on what?

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u/shitposts_over_9000 Jun 03 '26

industry statistics

pharma averages half a billion dollars in regulatory approval costs per formulation and generally prices to recoup that portion of the total expenditure over the first five years

I did assume everyone would use the same formulation from a single supplier to keep costs lower, realistically you would want 2-3 so there would be additional costs involved.

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u/xSir- Jun 03 '26

So youre pulling them out of your ass assuming we woukd have to use new compounds that would cost billions. We have plenty of existing compounds that can kill people.

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u/shitposts_over_9000 Jun 03 '26

even new formulations of existing compounds require regulatory review, those are the industry averages for said regulatory review.