How can veterinarians humanely put down animals regularly but prisons struggle with performing lethal injections reliably?
In: Biology
Believe it or not, I can all but gurantee the humaneness of veterinary euthenasia. The most common euthenasia drug is pentobarbital. That is a anti-seizure medication in low doses. In high doses it supresses brain activity to the point where all body processes shut down. It’s the closest you can get to dying in your sleep.
While government entities have use pentobarbital as an execution drug, they typically use a cocktail of other drugs to ensure death and reduce cost since pentobarbital is expensive. Unfortunately, those other drugs aren’t as humane and can cause immense pain if there isn’t enough pentobarbital to ensure complete anesthesia. On top of that, the pharmaceutical companies are refusing to sell pentobarbital and other drugs which could be used for executions to governments that carry out the death penalty. Though there are ways governments can still aquire it.
TL;DR what your vet uses is absolutely humane when administered by a proffesional, and it’s not exactly what prisons use for executions for various reasons.
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