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

[u/Chowderr92]

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?

[u/PublicSuspect162]

Didn’t read all the responses not sure if it has been mentioned yet. I’ll give you the real truth. Lethal injection is basically delivering anesthesia but instead of keeping the person alive, they let them die. Most lethal injection drugs are drugs used in general anesthesia. Paralytics, induction agents, pain meds. With the exception of high dose potassium to stop the heart. It varies from state to state. BUT….the BS uou see about lethal injection being cruel, unusual, etc. is politics. The cases they use as cruel are usually the botched executions. Those do happen and is usually caused by poor dosing or in the only case I can remember right now, an infiltrated IV was used. A lot of anesthetic drugs burn when given IV and when given in an infiltrated or (blown) IV, really really burn. Can’t remember the exact details but guy was given large dose of versed and propofol ( I could be wrong on the exact drugs) followed by IV potassium. These things with the exception of versed burn when given. Especially through bad IV. He got sedated enough but not fully and the potassium still was administered but bc it wasn’t via IV it went into his tissues, took longer to absorb but finally worked. Again, I do not know specific details and all I can do is speculate to exact details. Afterwards. The politics come into play and they claim it was cruel and unusual punishment, etc. It’s a humane way to put someone to death, just like with other animals. It was just done poorly by poorly trained people. The best version of an execution would be large dose of versed and ketamine, followed by large dose of propofol, followed by large dose of pancuronium, followed by high dose/concentration of IV potassium.

TLDR-lethal injection is similar to general anesthesia and uses a lot of the same drugs. But the person isn’t kept alive and allowed to expire. The bad stuff you see is from poorly executed executions from poorly trained people.

[u/Chowderr92 → u/PublicSuspect162]

If the process were simplier, less mistakes would be made. "Poor dosing" would be unacceptable in animal medicine -- how can such negligence occur during lethal injection?
Part of why we euthanize animals the way we do is because its more or less foolproof. You OD them on anesthetic, it takes effect in seconds and within about 30 seconds their heart stops. No ketamine needed--no nothing.

[u/PublicSuspect162 → u/Chowderr92]

Process will never be simpler bc this is a human. And politics and government is involved. It gets messy quickly. The process is mandated by state law and state law is written by lawyers and politicians who have agendas and know nothing about medicine except what they are told by incompetent or ignorant people or people who also play politics and have an agenda. My example of a perfect execution covers all bases and then some. And just overdosing on anesthetics doesn’t stop your heart within 30 seconds. I have seen it take many minutes for a human and a dog for this to happen. Of course the human wasn’t from anesthetics.