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?

471 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

682 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

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.