If governments are always looking for more humane methods of execution, why are heroin and other opiates never used, since they are supposedly the most blissful way to pass?
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Executing somebody has been an evolving science as ethics and criminal justice have changed over the years. The guillotine was an improvement over the executioners axe, because then you got rid of Chuck who always took two swings to decapitate somebody because he always flinched on the first one.
Basically it’s been an innovative race to find the most reliable way to execute somebody without causing them an insane amount of pain. Which leads us all the way to today in the US where we use a cocktail of drugs to knock somebody all the way out. They’re also beginning to test Nitrogen suffocation (pretty sure it was nitrogen), which sounds promising on the “reliable and painless” factor because you basically go to sleep and never wake up.
I’ll be honest I’ve always thought that if you’re already going to kill somebody they probably don’t really deserve all this, and if you can find a firing squad a bullet is a lot cheaper than a whole execution set up. I also understand that no gun is fired without a person pulling the trigger somewhere, so you’d have to rectify the potential PTSD and mental harm to the executioner.
Capital punishment is an interesting ethical topic, very worth discussing with people you know IRL because there’s a lot of interesting ways to take it.
It has to be as cruel as possible without being unusual. Because those are the two metrics: supporters of it want cruel, but the constitution says it can’t be unusual.
Try listening to Radiolab on the episode about insane niche shady manufacture of sodium pentathol and another 2 ingredients for death cocktails injections. It’s fucking bizarre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because of “cruel and unusual punishments” not being allowed. It’s pretty unusual to reward murderers with the most blissful end to life possible.
Opiates alone would give you a poor success rate. Most people won’t die quickly even with massive doses of morphine. You could however use them in a protocol that includes other sedatives.
If you look at MAID (medical aid in dying) in Canada, morphine is not a usual part of the protocol. In those cases, making the process confortable is one of the most important point.
The sequence goes (this is for my home province, might be different elsewhere)
1. Anxiolytic (think like Valium)
2. Sedative. Usually propofol. This is what killed Michael Jackson.
3. Neuromuscular blockade. In case one or two were not enough to have you stop breathing.
General anaesthetic will kill you at slightly higher concentrations than what you get for surgeries. Just use that. The prisoner would be deeply unconscious before it killed him.
No company wants their product or process tied to death except for the people who do stuff AFTER death.
Execution is not meant to be painful but also not pleasurable. Imagine the crimes that would be committed if drug addicts knew the government would hit you with one final massive fix.
Most of the conversation with execution doesn’t just center on the actual death but the perception of that death.
Example: They have considered just filling the room with a nitrogen instead of air/oxygen since your body does not recognize “lack of oxygen” it only has sensors for Co2 levels in the blood. This is why a lot of industry professions have warning signs all over to warn against such deaths in closed spaces with gasses. A person will just be fine and dandy until they pass out and die from lack of O2….no warning.
The reason they havent done it? A persons body still convulses in this passed out state and it “looks painful and distressing”. The perception of observers on the method of death factors into the whole “cruel and unusual” punishment argument.
Check out the yt video ‘ the false evolution of execution methods ‘. If you want a humane method of execution, a firing squad does the job – but it looks bad. If all executions were carried out by firing squad, maybe the death penalty would be less popular. The lethal injection on the other hand is the opposite. It looks humane but is in reality just naked cruelty, and a lot of people like it because of that. So it appeases the two camps of people who support death penalties: those who want the person to die suffering, and those who don’t want to think about it.
Last time I checked, the state of Ohio still uses hydromorphone (brand name Dilaudid) in its executions, which most IV drug addicts will tell you has a more euphoric rush than heroin.
Hydromorphone is a heavy duty opiate (like heroin) and would feel indistinguishable to anyone that isn’t a a regular drug user.
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