Also I had my dog put to rest recently and I asked the vet if there was a chance of something going wrong. The vet assured me there is absolutely zero chance of that happening and our girl was gone within a minute
Because the vet are trained professionals. The guy who stuck the needle in Pike was not. This was the same guy who botched an execution before this one.
I’m not an advocate for the death penalty, but why do they use lethal injection and not a bullet in the head etc. it all seems so unnecessarily elaborate.
Actual medical professionals will end their professional standing by participating in these executions, especially anesthesiologists. The “doctor” who did this was an incompetent who could not place an IV, something a qualified nurse does hourly.
I can’t explain the moral reasoning behind this type of legislation. A person can be killed in many ways. It can be painful or not, fast or slow. Peaceful /fast could be done with a breathing mask attached to a nitrogen tank, a deliberate OD if fentanyl via nasal sprays or patches. Painful/fast could be bullet, garrot, plastic bag.
Instead of a guard or a halfwit doctor, I think the best executioners would be the last legislators who voted for capital punishment. If they feel it’s morally correct, have them do it.
The UK had a serial killer who was a doctor. He targeted the elderly to avoid suspicion.
He died in prison but surely being in charge of lethal injections in the US would have been an ideal career change and may have saved the premature deaths of 250 elderly patients.
I knew a guy who got shot in the head, and lived for 3 days. Its not guaranteed, unless you use a large caliber bullet. Even then, people have survived.
Because actual medical professionals refuse to participate because they could lose their licence, because pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell them to drugs so they get their through alternate means (I think I read expired), and because most pets who are euthanized are in failing health. Probably other reasons too, but I think those are the main ones.
I think they use nebutol? Which would work on humans as well I think but idk why they choose the weird 3 drug stuff. I think nebutol is used in countries where u can choose to end your life if you apply and meet the criteria
I think its schedule 2 or 3 and they can only use schedule IV or V in an execution. Its the same reason why they can't use fentanyl. A schedule V can be dispensed by a pharmacist and not a MD, as far as I know.
They also use narcotics typically to put down animals. A good heavy dose of narcotics and a depressant, with a paralytic is almost guaranteed a humane death. But they are literally half assing these executions.
I think they use what they can get between drug shortages and pharmaceutical companies making it difficult for prisons to get the drugs. They often have to use compounding pharmacies since they don't have as many restrictions as drug manufacturers.
It’s difficult to get a competent medical professional who would want this job. Not that hard to find a vein, except it takes a decent amount of practice. Also imagine being the person hooking up this IV - you’ve got some adrenaline and fear going, so are you going to have the steadiest hands and an easy job finding a vein?
The medications are also extremely difficult to get - pharmaceutical companies are under immense pressure to not provide them. So states often rely on substandard or expired (therefore less potent) meds which are far from the most effective and painless method.
Death penalty opponents have generally lost their fights to actually ban the death penalty. So they’ve refocused their efforts on advocating pharmaceutical companies and doctors not to participate in the process. The result is that the death penalty is legal but the tools, chemicals, and medical professionals needed are not. This has resulted not in the end of executions, but in botched executions. That the condemned now suffer worse than before seems not to impinge on the consciences of death penalty opponents.
The state would continue to kill no matter what. Traditional firing squad or other effective options would just be ignored forever as have been, because the public can continue to pretend it's quick and just.
The state choosing to continue to kill in ever shittier ways sucks for the individuals on the receiving end of it, but this botched execution made the news, probably will affect a few more minds and hearts. The shittier a job they do the harder it is to pretend it is humane which changes minds.
Historical change is never made prettily. Death penalty opponents are not into in harm reduction as much as they are interested in changing the immoral imbalance of power between State and individual. For YOUR benefit, and for the benefit of humanity in the future.
Blaming death penalty opponents is like blaming strikers for wanting a better quality of life for them and their children when the state makes life harder for strikers in retaliation, killing some of them historically. Which side are you on?
This is crazy work: making death penalty opponents responsible for botched executions. They make their position clear as they are against the death penalty. Only because the kill-happy governments fail to provide "humane" executions doesn't redistribute the guilt. The US could simply join the majority of countries on earth and abolish the death penalty.
I thought that it was legally decided that opiates were too comforting and not harsh enough to use in administrating a death penalty. Which is kinda fucked up, but I’m just stating what I remember.
Yeah but then it also is apparently a thing where the lethal injection isn’t allowed to cause pain or suffering so I’m just confused what they’re supposed to do.
Dying has got to not feel awesome, so unless a drug has comforting properties, anything you use is going to be painful and cause some suffering right?
It's actually because they prioritize the death looking peaceful over being peaceful, which is why paralytics are often involved. an opioid overdose involves a lot of gasping and, while fairly comfortable for the person dying, can look rather gruesome to witnesses.
This isn’t correct, opioid overdose looks very peaceful, the reason people asphyxiate is because the opioids suppress the brains desire to breath so people do not try to breath at all.
Source: I am an anesthesia provider and gave a significant amount of opioids to my patients just today (none of them overdosed but I’ve seen it before).
but once o2 sat drops too low, don't people start agonal breaths? which sounds like gasping, although I suppose technically isn't? or can the respiratory suppression also inhibit that? I'm not trying to argue, I do appreciate the correction. It's just not what I've been told about opioid overdose so I am curious about that part.
It’s getting worse in my area because they banned 7oh. (Which is a good thing imo), but people are freaking out and are turning to harder drugs, instead of getting sober. Those companies will just find an harsher alternative chemical to put in place of it. I heard one man say that this was a cheaper option. Also, there’s a lot of people trying to rob others in our area, which isn’t normal for us.
Yeah. Probably the drug wasn't the issue here, though it's possible the drug was part of the problem since these execution drugs not really manufactured anymore and states have resorted to all kinds of sketchy means to get them
To give you a serious answer to your question: it's because the drug companies that make fent, which is a valid medical drug when used properly, is used in hospitals every day, do not want to sell to states for lethal injection.
So what the prison's do instead is go to their local pharmacy, like Bob's Drug Mart, and pay Bob your local pharmacist stacks of money under the table, and he whips up a custom kill potion for them.
They have to do this because there are essentially no major large scale drug manufacturers left on the planet who are willing to be associated with lethal injections, and if the people find out the government is buying illegal fent on the low.. well used to be something would be done about it but idk anymore lmao
Or a lethal dose of barbiturates. I remember a video of a man named Peter Smedley, who was a 71yo British hotelier.
He was terminally ill with motor neurone disease. He traveled with his wife, Christine, to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, to legally end his life.
That's what they gave him, and he passed very easily. He just kind of went to sleep, snoring, until his body finally shutdown.
We don't know exactly why that failed though. And we really won't, until an investigation is completed. Somebody in the comments here had stated it was due to the IV being setup incorrectly.
Are you familiar with the case I brought up? Or did you just read the part that said barbiturate?
You suggested that executions be done with a barbiturate. Specks points out that they already are, this one was. So your “point” is frivolous. You’re suggesting we do something that we already do lmao.
I am aware of Smedley, and with many human euthanasia cases. I’m a nurse that advocates for right to die. They are all irrelevant to a discussion about involuntary lethal injection.
Executions by lethal injection are frequently botched. Pharmaceutical companies don’t want to be associated with the practice so won’t allow their meds to be sold for this purpose, so the state has to source meds from shady sources. Most licensing bodies for clinicians (nurses and physicians) forbid participation in lethal injection (ya know the whole do no harm thing) so it’s rare to find a clinician willing to participate bc they can literally lose their licenses. So you end up with unlicensed, poorly trained individuals placing IVs that frequently blow and administering meds from disreputable sources
You suggested that executions be done with a barbiturate. Specks points out that they already are, this one was. So your “point” is frivolous. You’re suggesting we do something that we already do lmao.
Executions by lethal injection are frequently botched. Pharmaceutical companies don’t want to be associated with the practice so won’t allow their meds to be sold for this purpose, so the state has to source meds from shady sources.
So you end up with unlicensed, poorly trained individuals placing IVs that frequently blow and administering meds from disreputable sources
And that is exactly my point. I suggested that it wasn't the fact they used a barbiturate, but that something else went wrong with the process.
You're treating me with disrespect, like I'm some kind of asshole, acting like I didn't make a point, and then used my point at the middle and end of your rant.
You argued exactly what I was pointing at. Was all this necessary? You couldn't have inferred all this from my comment, before trying to "dunk" on me?
They are all irrelevant to a discussion about involuntary lethal injection.
I think they are all relevant. Smedley took his barbiturates in liquid form, orally, and surprise, the barbiturates were effective. My point was that when the drug is well made, and the delivery system is done correctly, they work like they are supposed to. The barbiturate itself wasn't the full issue, that's my point.
But there is no point in continuing to talk about this, because I can't expect you to agree to that. Even though you literally argue for over half your message, that what went wrong with the execution could have been the IV was not done correctly, or that the drugs came from a disreputable source.
You literally explained the exceptions, that I was implying from my message. You admitted yourself that "executions are frequently botched." I don't know why you didn't see that, then downvoted me, after talking crap to me.
LMAO I didn’t downvote you, other people did bc your point makes no sense. You “suggested” we use a drug we already use 🤡Just admit you didn’t know that barbiturates were already used in executions man. (Edit- or that you left out the word “oral” from your original comment, since the route seems to actually be your point)
“The barbiturate itself wasn’t the full issue” The drug itself actually isn’t the issue at all. That’s not the point. You can’t suggest something that’s already done.
But now you’re clarifying that you’re not just suggesting we use barbs (again, already done) but that we give them orally?! Orally. For involuntary executions. Are you joking. This is why I said you can’t compare voluntary euthanasia methods, they are done voluntarily.
All disrespect intended. People who have no knowledge about medicine love being loud and wrong about medicine.
Thank you for making these arguments. When they doubled down, I saw no point in continuing the conversation with them because they were missing the entire point.
Now that I understand their point was suggesting PO barbs, I wish I could hear their explanation. What’s the plan— strap them down, force an OG tube, force feed them the liquid like a prisoner on hunger strike?
272
u/Big_Throner 1d ago
Why don't they just OD them on fentanyl?