In large enough doses, morphine depresses breathing while keeping dying patients relatively comfortable until the end. So why can’t death row prisoners use lethal amounts of morphine instead of a dodgy cocktail of drugs that become difficult to get as soon as drug companies realize what they’re being used for?
In: Chemistry
You might want to look into the history of executions themselves. They’re not made with the prisoner in mind, but society watching.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirR4FHY2YY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirR4FHY2YY)
Enjoy a start
There are many ways to painlessly kill people. In Canada and Europe they’re killing people at request, peacefully, in pods.
The issue in the US is purely political.
Morphine isn’t strong enough on it’s own. It would have to be used with other chemicals similar to how it is done now. There is also a high likelihood that the person might not die, even with large doses.
By comparison, heroin is about 50 times stronger than morphine, and fentanyl is about 50 times stronger than heroin, so fentanyl would be a much more effective choice.
It was used in a single execution in Nebraska back in 2018. [You can read about it here.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/08/14/nebraska-prepares-for-first-u-s-execution-using-fentanyl/)
Interestingly, it’s left to the state level government to choose the most effective chemical for lethal injections. [Here is a list of all the different chemicals that are used in each state.](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/lethal-injection/overview-of-lethal-injection-protocols)
Now you mention it, why don’t they just use the same thing they use for animals when they get put down?
Orrrrr…
You just don’t have a death penalty. Problem solved.
No?
Ultimately the deliberate decision to kill a human who is aware you are going to do it to them even when they aren’t actually actively resisting can sometimes just be darned difficult and frightfully complicated especially when you yourself aren’t actually a murderous individual. When you’re not really comfortable with doing it, and there is a lot of rules and checkboxes on a long form that has to be checked.
A drug overdose typically doesn’t check a lot of those checkboxes.
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