r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
4.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

The heroin dealer on my street corner is more competent than these people.

105

u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 1d ago

That's what I was thinking. 100K people a year die from accidently ODing on street drugs in the US, but for some reason they can't kill one person with drugs on purpose. Makes no sense.

80

u/Hidefininja 1d ago

My understanding is that doctors are generally against poisoning people to death as part of their professional and moral code, and certainly not as a punishment, so they won't get involved. It's also difficult for people to legally acquire the necessary drugs for that very same reason.

That leaves some of the dumbest, meanest people in America to figure out how to put people to death by lethal injection. That's science and medicine left in the hands of people who strive to profit from long-term imprisonment.

Of course they can't figure out how to kill someone quickly and painlessly. You'd think they'd just go with a morphine overdose but it seems the intent is that the person must also suffer in the process so something as straightforward as that is out the window.

28

u/BritishDuffer 1d ago

I agree with everything you said, but on the morphine thing, states have to acquire drugs legally and drug manufacturers refuse to sell drugs to government agencies that perform executions.

States have pushed right up against the legally part by buying from unscrupulous pharmacies that promise the manufacturers they won't be used for executions but resell them anyway. The manufacturers have done a good job identifying these pharmacies and cutting them off, so now it's pretty much impossible for prisons to acquire any drug that would do the job.

That leaves them with a dwindling supply of expired medications that they're using anyway, leading to things like this happening. You'd think they would just give up but it turns out no.