If it’s so easy to overdose and die from certain illicit drugs, why aren’t they used for prisoners receiving lethal injections?
In: 0
Not exactly speaking from experience, but overdoses on illicit drugs can sometimes be extremely painful and/or slow ways to die. There’s also the moral and practical issues of having the drugs available near a prison and that it would not stand to logical reason for a law to ban their public use and distribution, yet allow their use for executions. Lethal injections are intended to be quick and humane, without the subject feeling a thing beyond the needle itself.
Said illicit drugs would be considered inhumane to do so with (aside from the death penalty debate to begin with), because those overdoses can take a long time and be unpredictable and painful, versus lethal injections being a specific mix of drugs that lead to a fast, painless death.
“Easy to overdose on” does not automatically mean “quick to die from”
Rope costs less than heroin, there’s plenty of other ways to frugally kill a person besides drugs. The reason some countries use the drugs they do is because they are believed to be more humane. In the US we usually use three drugs in a lethal injection. Pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) is used to cause muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest, potassium chloride to stop the heart, and midazolam for sedation.
[removed]
There are tons of ways to kill someone humanely. There are lots of drugs or methods which could work. But that isn’t really the issue.
The problem is that legislation about how condemned can be killed gets passed only with the support of a bunch of data showing it can be reliably and humanely done. So even though we can say that “a crapload of fentanyl” will certainly kill someone that isn’t a viable method of execution. A dosage which would kill one person won’t for another, there is a lack of data about how distressing the experience is to the condemned, and ultimately it just isn’t on the books as an approved method.
A major issue is that legislators are going to want some doctor to weigh in on if a method is humane and effective at killing people, a professional being there to administer the drugs, and a manufacturer being able to supply the drugs meeting a high standard. But drug manufacturers don’t really want to be associated with executions as the political fallout is very high and the number of potential customers is quite low. So the drug manufacturers tend to be unwilling to provide said products to the state for use in executions; fentanyl is still being produced and used for medical purposes but they won’t sell it for use in executions. Similarly it can be difficult to find a doctor willing to administer the lethal injections since they may have ethical and career objections to doing so. A doctor swears to do no harm and thinks maybe their future practice might be harmed by being known as the execution doctor, so they take a pass on the job.
Now the state has someone they want to kill but they can’t get drugs from a source that will verify their quality (as the manufacturer doesn’t want the bad PR), they can’t get a doctor to take the job, and the law requires both and doesn’t offer alternatives.
[removed]
Lethal Injections aren’t just to kill someone. It’s to kill someone in the most humane way possible. Doctors sterilize the injection site to make sure it doesn’t get an infection . . . for a lethal injection. The injection usually contains a sedative as well to put the victim to sleep before they die so that it’s as painless as possible.
Illicit drug death is often long and painful.
Latest Answers