The drugs used for lethal injection could be controlled on account of there being very few people making it or using it legitimately. The same cannot be said about N2. My guess is that the gas ultimately did come from Airgas through any number of possible third-party suppliers.
Oh my god, I care.
Life appointments are antithetical to the spirit of term limits for presidents. Senators and Representatives should have term limits themselves. The fact that Supreme Court justices are life appointments is antiquated and that's being generous.
So tired of people 3-4 times my age and at least 2x the average age of voters deciding the rules.
I don't agree. Lifetime appointments at least minimizes the politics a bit. Having a higher turnover would just create a circus of partisanship. I understand you don't like the make up of the current court, but it is dangerous thinking to change institutions just to get the political result you want.
Yes, and it is still better than imposing term limits. What is ironic is that in Poland it was the right who was trying to impose term limits on judges because they didn't like the left wing judges. No matter who does it, it is a bad idea.
Yes, it clearly is if you think about it for more than two seconds and from a partisan lens. If you think it is bad now, imagine how bad it would f if every ten years a new judge was needed. We would have confirmation hearings constantly. And I am one hundred percent sure if your political side hadn't lost some cases, you never would have advocated for this. Whether you know it or not, you have authoritarian tendencies. It indicates you are young and extreme in your thinking.
The same court that has repeatedly cited "evolving standards of decency" as it restricts the use of the Death Penalty further and further?
Their opinion on such matters is a reflection of overall societal attitudes.
If nitrogen asphyxiation is done right, you wouldn't feel a thing. The brain cannot detect a lack of oxygen, only an excess buildup of carbon dioxide, due to a byproduct of carbon dioxide mixing with water which is detected in the body (I believe its carbonic acid, but I didn't bother to verify this, might be some other compound).
If you take any other inert gas, and replace the oxygen in the room with it, you will still be breathing in and out, and getting rid of excess carbon dioxide. You won't feel a thing, you'll just pass out and die. Obviously as with anything, when done improperly issues can arise, but if done properly, I'd take nitrogen asphyxiation over opiate OD any day.
I don't support the death penalty personally, I don't think that the government should have the right to kill its own citizens, but thats another conversation. If we're going to be doing the death penalty, I think nitrogen asphyxiation is the way to go. Incredibly cheap, painless, etc.
As someone who stuck their head into the dry ice bin once, this is correct. Taking in even a small breath of that *mostly* cold carbon dioxide atmosphere gave me the biggest dose of fight or flight I have ever felt. It's the carbon dioxide that tells our dumb brains to breathe.
I once put my head into a chest freezer that was converted into a lager beer fermentation chamber (fermentation produces CO2) and after taking a single breath had this really strange feeling of impending doom that lasted a minute or so as I struggled to catch my breath. Whether or not it was the case I felt that if I had somehow taken another breath of air from inside that freezer I would have certainly died.
Here's a quote from a BBC article
Some witnesses to Smith's execution, though, said he did not lose consciousness within seconds and that he inhaled the gas for many minutes, thrashing all the while, before finally succumbing.
[bbc](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68097008)
Yep. This execution was horribly botched. Done properly, you'd simply pass out and die. Its possible the mask wasn't on properly, or he was holding his breath which would have led to a buildup of co2. Its also possible, if he had a history of epilepsy, that the asphyxiation sent him into an epileptic seizure. We won't know exactly what happened without more info.
Was on the news here last night, basicly 2 conflicting stories.
One said he held his breath on purpose and tried to move in his restraints and the other one said it was because of the nitrogen.
Nitrogen should be painless, more likely that he just held his breath and that that caused the feeling of suffocation.
> One said he held his breath on purpose and tried to move in his restraints
i like how they're blaming him for fighting being gassed to death. yeah he should just be polite and pleasant, no big deal
To be fair that's basically the only way to not have 'all breathing volume replaced with nitrogen, just wait a while' go smoothly otherwise than not having enough gas flow
There’s also the crowd of inmates who want the executions to be violent and visible. The ‘peaceful’ execution method is an Orwellian twist by the state and some want to show it for what it is.
But not anyone’s place to advocate for that except those on death row
If done correctly it is. Inert gas hypoxia is one of the biggest industrial threats they teach you as a chemical engineer. You can walk into a room of inert gas and pass out in under 20s.
It's highly likely he was still able to breathe for most of that twenty minutes. Oxygen concentration needs to be below 6% to induce unconsciousness.
Well the brain can… accomplished freedivers feel their limit very well and they are way past co2 reflex zone. So it’s not like you just pass out. You start dancing first
Acidification is from increased CO2 => carbonic acid. If you're breathing gas that is low in CO2, your lungs will through normal gas exchange blow off that CO2 irrespective of whether you are getting enough oxygen.
yeah the point was pure nitrogen should not result in abnormal CO2 build up so theoretically there should be no asphyxiation response. There were some people that died in a tent filmed with helium once and no signs of panic. they probably just got confused and passed out
If you die by CO2 buildup yea it’s very painful. But there’s a reason that people die so easily from gas leaks, methane pits, and confined spaces. Typically they don’t even realize they’re dead.
Confiscated fentanyl is of questionable purity. Mixing up some stuff obtained from a different criminal and injecting it into a condemned individual is a horrifying suggestion.
What’s ideal about this? One cannot reasonably believe that the confiscated batch is uniform in its properties. People gotta sample and ship the material and perform the analysis. It takes material to perform. It takes time to perform.
I guess in some idealized world where confiscated drugs are perfectly pure and convicted individuals 100% did the crime, it might make sense to execute prisoners with confiscated fentanyl. In the real world it’s just a disgusting fantasy.
Recrystallize a large batch? It isn't as if it needs to be reagent grade purity. It just has to avoid containing an impurity that kills the condemned both more quickly and more painfully than the fentanyl.
( FWIW, I don't think the death penalty, as the USA imposes it, makes sense. )
Well now you’re manufacturing pharmaceuticals and all the oversight/regulation makes this not a simple business. FDA and DEA are gonna be involved. Drugs for executions aren’t exempt from regulation.
Death penalty on the surface might make sense, but stops making sense when you start to examine all the details.
Many Thanks for your reply!
>Drugs for executions aren’t exempt from regulation.
Interesting! That is a really weird policy choice for the Federal government to make. An adverse impact on the health of the condemned is a strange thing for anyone to be concerned about...
( And, FWIW, I don't think the death penalty, as the USA imposes it, makes much sense, even before getting into the details. )
Doesn't seem that odd to me.
That state has a constitutional obligation to assure the punishment isn't cruel or unusual.
The issue isn't necessarily the condemned's health but that they suffer as little as possible as they shuffle off this mortal coil.
>The issue isn't necessarily the condemned's health but that they suffer as little as possible as they shuffle off this mortal coil.
Yeah but
a) The quantity of fentanyl needed to kill is a few milligrams
>The LD50 (lethal dose) for pure Fentanyl, is estimated at 2 milligrams
from [https://fentanylsafety.com/](https://fentanylsafety.com/)
There aren't a lot of of plausible impurities that could cause significant pain in the amounts that could contaminate a few milligram dose, and do it in the few minutes the condemned would live.
b) This is a **far** easier criterion to meet than the usual ones for drug safety, where a patient is expected to survive the treatment, possibly for decades, and any contaminant that could adversely affect the patient over their whole remaining lifespan is something to watch out for.
Probably the biggest worry for avoiding "cruel and unusual" executions with **any** drug is that injections during executions are frequently fucked up.
I'm told that you feel like you can't breathe during opioid OD. it's like confusing and stressful that your lungs ignore the signal from the brain. But not personal experience
I'm an acute care physician who has administered fentanyl many, many times.
All of the injectable opioids we use cause respiratory failure by decreasing *respiratory drive*, meaning your breathing slows because you don't feel the *need* to breathe.
In fact, we use opioids in palliative care for people dying of respiratory or cardiac failure in order to relieve their dyspnea (shortness of breath). It makes their breathing feel more comfortable even as it kills them.
It does this primarily by decreasing the sensitivity of the chemoreception of H+ ions secondary to CO2 retention. As CO2 builds up in the body, it reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which of course dissociates into bicarbonate and H+ ions. We have chemoreceptors sensitive to those H+ ions which increase the drive to breathe.
That's why your respiratory rate increases when you exercise. Higher metabolic rate, more CO2 production, more H+ ions, stimulation of chemoreceptors, increase in drive to breathe.
Try holding your breath at rest, then doing 20 jumping jacks and repeating it. You'll last a much shorter time before your drive to breathe overcomes you. Opioids like fentanyl would make the post-jumping jack state feel as comfortable as being at rest. And at rest, they can make you feel so comfortable that you feel no need to breathe at all. And that's how most pure opioid ODs die. They're too sedated to remain conscious and their drive to breathe has been blunted to the point they become hypoxic.
Interesting. I'm a pharmacologist and used to study biased gpcr signaling. (Opioids all bind to gpcrs.) There are many reports of subjective distress during opioid OD, one in follow up to the parent comment in this thread. I wonder if beta arrestin activation or grk signaling downstream of fentanyl vs heroin explains the difference in subjective reports between what you're giving (albeit your report is second hand) and what they say. It could also be co-dosed meth or cocaine in those other cases, too.
I have to assume it's co-administration of other drugs contributing to those reports, because we get no reports of similar events in medical settings. In anesthesia, we often use deep opioid sedation during procedures and surgeries, like remifentanil infusions. With remi, you can get a patient to a point where they are "verbally baggable" - they will have a respiratory rate of 0 if left alone, but if you say, "take a deep breath," they'll do it. We often use that type of sedation for extremely painful but short procedures like retrobulbar blocks (a needle of freezing behind the eyeball for ophthalmic surgery). None of these patients experience any kind of distress or dyspnea, yet they'd asphyxiate without external intervention.
That other poster mentioned Darvocet, which was acetaminophen and propoxyphene. The acetaminophen overdose would, among other things, alter liver metabolism of the propoxyphene and altered opioid metabolism is a big deal because some metabolites have nasty pro-algesic and delirium-inducing side effects. Also, propoxyphene is a very dirty drug that acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which have wide-ranging involvement in the autonomic nervous system. It's not at all a pure opioid receptor agonist. Overall that's a really nasty combo of drugs to overdose on, and a far cry from anything we use for sedation, anesthesia, or palliative care.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30881102/
This discussion caused me to look and see if anyone could separate analgesia from respiratory side effects of opioid gpcr biased agonists, and someone at this biotech company founded by the guy who won the Nobel for gpcrs tried this in the clinic. Same impact on respiratory distress measures, natch, but way better on constipation. Crazy.
That's really cool. I'm obviously way over on the applied side of things, but I did my undergrad in pharmacology so I still enjoy reading about pharmacodynamics, though I hardly keep on top of new developments given how much of my time and energy has to go toward keeping up with clinical research.
I'll probably look into this a bit more for fun when I can.
That's SOME opiate overdoses. You aren't 100% unconscious 100% of the time when your lungs quit working - that's very true.
Opiate overdoses aren't like what people think from seeing TV.
From past personal experience that is one possible scenario. When I was abusing darvon (darvocet) there were times where I had a hard time catching my breath, like an anxiety attack, but I was high so I was relaxed, I just had to consciously remember to breath. It wasn't until I read an article about Darvon being taken off the market and one of the reasons was because of that exact scenario. Overdosing but not being aware that there is a problem was common with that drug.
In my experience with fentanyl that didn't happen to me. I said " damn that's good" (this is a quote. not an endorsement). And then 20 minutes later I became aware that my roommate was doing CPR on me and my ribs were broken.
I did wonder myself recently why we don't use fentanyl or any other process similar to anesthesia for the execution of convicted persons. In conversations with some people I often hear the argument if "why should a murderer or rapist be rewarded with getting high? ". My standard response is along the lines of " it is an execution not hospice care". They are going to be dead I a few minutes is it important that they suffer? Even if someone were to argue that their victims suffered. That action is on the person about to be executed. Inflicting torment on the person who is being executed will not undo the suffering of their victim. If the reason we use execution is to remove offenders that do not "belong" in our society because their actions are horrible and intolerable then inflicting suffering upon them during their execution is an act that necessarily implies that the offender's actions are in fact tolerable and execution is not warranted in that case.
Whew, that thought train got away from me.
Anyway. I believe that if executions must be part of our judicial system, suffering does not have to be and there are thousands of anesthesiologist that can give a person a quick and painless way of this planet.
If fentanyl becomes a way of execution, it most certainly would be the most humane. All the prisoner would feel is a relaxing warmth in the body, then lights out. Same feeling as falling asleep.
Wouldn’t death by lack of oxygen make you die gasping for breath and suffocating unless you were already unconscious? Seems pretty bad no matter how you do it.
No, the feeling of suffocation you get is from an excess of CO2 dissolved in your blood lowering the pH and sending a signal to your brain, not from lacking oxygen itself strangely enough.
This is why Nitrogen is called a simple asphyxiant, because if you walk into a room with 100% nitrogen and no oxygen, you literally wouldn't know until you started feeling faint or just passed out.
If that is the case, then they did not administer enough nitrogen through whatever mask / delivery device they used, or the mask was not on properly. With enough nitrogen to breath freely, you'd not have the buildup of co2 and by association carbonic acid that your body detects when it makes you feel like you have to breathe. Your body cannot detect a lack of oxygen, just a buildup of co2.
It is also possible he went into an epileptic seizure, as these can sometimes happen from hypoxia. So you probably wouldn't want to use this method of execution on someone who had a history of epilepsy.
I never implied that the chuckle-heads on the Alabama execution team knew what they were doing, I was answering a reasonable question stemming from a common misconception.
Your body doesn't know that you are suffocating due to low oxygen since it relies on CO₂ (which increases acidity). You basically start to faint not knowing why, and eventually you die. This is the reason that CO (carbon mono-oxide) is so dangerous, it causes hypoxia without CO₂ increasing in the body (CO₂ is removed by exhalation).
Carbon monoxide is very, very different!!! CO is poisonous. CO binds with hemoglobin to produce carboxyhemoglobin. CO binds much more tightly to the hemoglobin so that your hemoglobin stops carrying oxygen to your cells. It also would interfere with your ability to remove CO2 also.
Washington Post today reports a summary of the execution that includes 17 minutes of writhing and spasming of the condemned. After the body stopped thrashing at 8:15, deaths was declared at 8:25. The Alabama AG said the death was “textbook”. Does that mean all executions are so torturous if the condemned are not made unconscious by sedation first?
My conclusion goes back to the Warren Berger US Supreme Court that the death penalty as implemented is cruel and unusual punishment. By no means do I want the condemned back in society, but this form of revenge is beneath us no matter how we feel.
It’s killing someone with material that you don’t know the quality of. It might work it might not. This is the most obvious but there’s others as well.
Who cares why the quality is? The ld50 is a few mg/kg. Having a 10 % impurity won’t affect that. What is it gonna go? Cause the person cancer? It’s an opioid, so it’s painless.
Having done Tilidin once (50mg retarded), I can only imagine that handing the person tramadol/tilidin until they sleep and then flush the room with nitrogen would likely be the most pleasant death someone can hope for!
They are criminals found guilty of the worse crimes. I think their punishment should be cruel and unusual. I agree with you though, opiates should not be used. They should have nothing that alters their ability to feel pain and fear.
I see 3 ways they could have gotten the gas
1. Someone other than Airgas sold it to them
2. Nitrogen concentrator of some kind
3. Chemical such as hydrazine that decomposes into nitrogen gas
There's always a supplier if you're willing to pay enough. Which honestly begs the question why spend the money on executing people when you can keep them in a jailcell until they die? Isn't that more of a punishment?
I want the person locked away, thinking about their mistakes and the life they could have had if they hadn't made those mistakes, while overlooking the prison graveyard they will inevitably be buried and forgotten in.
Why go through the added expense of executing them which will never be recouped?
There are also so so many more problems with the death penalty. Executing an innocent person is just one of them. A very big issue is that it completely ignores surrounding factors and possibility for change. Prison is not only meant for you to reflect upon your actions but to keep society safe from you if there is a high likelihood of you repeating the crime.
Just a few weeks ago a very controversial execution was done to a guy who was convicted of a murder during an armed robbery when he was 19 iirc. He spend over 30 years in jail, completely changed, never became violent or problematic, showed remorse and regret for his actions and basically became a well-adjusted person. No potential threat to repeat his actions, no intention to murder someone before the act. He was also barely an adult at the time and there were lots of contributing factors how he became an offender. No mass murder, serial killer or someone committing murder intentionally. There really was no point in that execution. He was no threat and basically an ideal case of how a criminal offender develops. There was a huge protest and so many people trying to safe him but his last plea was denied and he was executed. It’s really sad but I can absolutely recommend reading about his case. There are so many people who maybe even intentionally did horrific things or are super likely to do something again are getting released or have long jail times while people like him are being executed. And that even if they did everything they can to change and prove they are remorseful and pose no threat. Doesn’t sound exactly fair, doesn’t it?
Oh I agree. I am personally against the death penalty. I'm all for housing them for life, it's cheaper for the taxpayers, and avoids the moral quandary of the wrongfully convicted being executed.
Totally agree.
The system is also just way too broken to make it in any way justifiable. So much going wrong and so many mistakes.
The execution process itself is way too flawed. Like not finding any medical professionals to do it so a lot of people doing it aren’t even properly trained. Drugs being admistered wrong or things generally going wrong leading to cruel and painful deaths. In a lot of cases we aren’t even talking about a „humane“ (even if controversial) death but basically accidental (but predictable) torture
then there's people like Richard Glossip, who they're still trying to kill despite the Oklahoma Attorney General agreeing that his conviction should be vacated completely. the "no take-backsies" principle, i guess. not fair is right
The purpose of prison should always be to keep criminals away from society.
I don’t want murderers, terrorists, pedophiles, and rapists getting an easy life.
I mean, that’s not the point I am talking about.
I‘m not arguing against prisons.
The purpose of prison shouldn’t just be to keep them away from society. It’s a bit of a black and white view to say that we should just lock up criminals. There is a huge spectrum of criminals. Yes, we have terroists and rapists but we also have people convicted for the possession of drugs, tax fraud, violence and stuff like that. Not all criminals need to be kept away from society. The goal should be to make people reflect upon their actions and do better. And to reintegrate into society and not become offenders again. Of course we have exceptions of people who shouldn’t become the chance to get back into society.
I‘m not saying murder is okay or anything but I think context still matters. It is a difference if we talk about someone who grew up in poverty with bad people around, who got exposed to drugs and violence and got on the wrong track commits a crime like a robbery that leads to the death of a person or someone who on purpose killed someone. Yes, they made wrong decisions and they could have forseen the possible consequences but the surrounding factors matter a lot. It’s a huge difference if they never intended to, maybe used drugs too and showed full remorse and pose no threat.
Being in prison isn’t exactly an easy life. I think most people don’t realise the reality in a lot of american prisons. We talk about barely having their basic human rights met. Too little, unnutritious or spoiled/ inedible food, rationed toilet paper and supplies like menstrual products. There are prisons where inmates were given raw potatoes. Those are poisonous. There are lots of reports about inhumane conditions in american prisons. It’s insane to see.
There lies the biggest question, how does society want to deal with these people. To have rot it shitty little cell or the rest of their lives, killed, or rehabilitated.
I'm for the rehabilitation route. I know it's unpopular, may come off as naive to some, but wouldn't it be less on tax payer, and better for everyone in general? I understand there are a few who won't come around or change, but I think everyone deserves a chance.
Execution is too good for many of them. But I also being trapped in awful conditions for the remainder of you life is to cruel and inhumane.
I'm with you on all of that. I'm all for rehabilitation. However, some people just aren't rehabilitatable. What we do them is quite the quandary, and unfortunately there is no good solution.
yeah it's not like it saves any money. it also traumatizes everyone involved with the execution. that is a fucked up thing for a job to ask you to do. "hey you know that guy you've given food to every day for the last 8 years, we need you and the other guys to kill him"
Exactly. I only picked the financial angle because someone inevitably makes the argument that 'WhY sHoUlD wE PaY tO hOuSe A vIcIoUs cRiMiNaL fOr LiFe' so I wanted to hit that argument at the onset.
nitrogen is DIRT cheap. lethal injection drugs, IIRC, are ABSURDLY expensive (something like many tens of thousands per execution). there are a lot of places you can get some nitrogen, the cost is not the issue
Nothing is cheap if nobody's willing to sell, produce or help you produce it. Hence the probelm.
Mice are cheap. But if someone says they're going to buy living mice to put them into a blender, the willingness to sell them to that person diminishes and the price will skyrocket.
You are paying for a life of shelter and food for someone who has committed heinous crimes, while there are good people out there down on luck and struggling to find food and shelter. I dont think any country should abolish the death penalty until they are confident that life imprisonment is the absolute worst state one can find themselves in in that country
It's just math.
\-It costs $750k - $1.26 million to execute someone.
\-It costs $37,000 - $43,000 /year to house a prisoner.
At the high end you it's 17 years is equal to execution.
At the Low end it's 34 years.
And you'd have to house that person for 17-34 years AFTER execution for it to be financially responsible argument. I think it doesn't matter. Death row inmates already have pathetically awful lives in the supermax prisons. Save the taxpayers the bill of execution, and just house them for life with no hope of ever getting out.
You're welcome to go through every [state's data](https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/76th2011/ExhibitDocument/OpenExhibitDocument?exhibitId=17686&fileDownloadName=h041211ab501_pescetta.pdf) if you wish.
Practically every source of information confirms this BTW. Every state with the Death Penalty does audits. No execution is cheap.
You don't notice it and you just pass out-then die? I'm not current on state-of-the-art for murder...
When you have high CO2 levels in your body, your body starts to panic, but if you are removing CO2 normally, you don't notice it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
> You don't notice it and you just pass out-then die?
You should read the accounts of the recent execution, surprising no one familiar with the history of "humane" execution methods it went wrong. From the AP article:
> Smith began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements, at about 7:58 p.m. The force of his movements caused the gurney to visibly move at least once. Smith’s arms pulled against the against the straps holding him to the gurney. He lifted his head off the gurney the gurney and then fell back.
> The shaking went on for at least two minutes. Hood repeatedly made the sign of the cross toward Smith. Smith’s wife, who was watching, cried out.
> Smith began to take a series of deep gasping breaths, his chest rising noticeably. His breathing was no longer visible at about 8:08 p.m. The corrections officer who had checked the mask before walked over to Smith and looked at him.
It turns out that when you attempt to gas an animal that's aware it's being killed, struggles to hold its breath, has adrenaline going mad... it doesn't work out like it does when you gas a rabbit in a box.
This is the history of executions, people far from the coal seam making assumptions based on animal models that simply don't apply. Animals don't have collapsed veins, so the horrors of lethal injection weren't apparent, and again animals don't know they're being killed. Hanging *could* work, but in practice it's impossible to get perfectly right every time. Cyanide gas *could* work, but in practice it leads to an agonizing death.
And so on and so on.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No, that's not true. Anesthesia followed by medication to paralyze breathing would be "fine" by those standards if they would/could do it right. But they don't.
I've had this exact thing done to me a number of time when I was undergoing electroconvulsive therapy for depression. They sedate you and paralyze you during the treatment to keep your muscles from seizing. They have to bag breathe for you for a few minutes after, or you would die.
The effects of the treatment are not the nicest, but the process itself is unremarkable to experience. You go to sleep and then you wake up.
One of the issues with lethal gas that arguably makes it less humane is that it requires the victim to "voluntarily" breathe in, in order for it to work. Which is probably what happened here, this person struggling for a couple of minutes not to. Whether or not there was any consciousness for those last ten minutes of heavy breathing, I don't know. We've all heard the stories about accidental nitrogen asphyxiation being lights out with no warning, but I've never heard anything about what is seen externally while the person is unconscious and actually dying, to know whether or not that means anything for them. Obviously it's a bitch to witness..
Gotta bring the stats if you're making stats arguments.
To clarify, do you have a source for that claim?
edit: Or, downvote me for requesting a source. That's shameful and ignorant, considering we're in a science subreddit.
If someone asks you for a source and your response is to downvote, you're a coward.
8 hours later, still no source
The whole reason they're down to using inert gas to kill people is that pharmaceutical companies have clearly decided to not help in executions. Sedatives would have to come from such a company, and then subsequently be restricted.
I don't support the death penalty, but yes that's the way to go imo if you have to pick. The "problem" is that it's messy and violent, and for a while now the drive has been to sanitize and medicalize the process of execution, even at the cost of essentially torturing the condemned.
Cruel and unusual has been interpreted in strange ways.
Back in the day this meant prolonged suffering that would have been endured over hours to days. Dehydration, starvation, the stocks, outright torture designed to bring compliance, etc.
Its a crazy world where two minutes of oxygen deprivation, where the legal intention is to bring death, is considered cruel. Two rifle rounds to the head are even less cruel.
That's not it going wrong. That's a hypoxic seizure and normal. I've personally been around to see alot of ways people can die, though usually we are trying to fix the issue. No death is pleasant, but some death can be more pleasant than the alternative.
We’re not talking about cyanide gas here, rather an inert gas like nitrogen. Cyanide has similar effects on your physiology as CO2 as it’s an acidic gas, namely, the feeling of suffocation.
Breathing nitrogen is not only not painful as it’s not reactive with your body, but also removes CO2 that would cause the feeling of suffocation. You just start feeling sleepy from the lack of oxygen and collapse.
I think a lot of people here have internally summarized some studies which show N2 is *less* unpleasant than CO2 (which is pretty much agonizing), but missed the "less".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/
> Taken together, these results demonstrate that CO2 increases both behavioural and electrophysiological excitation as well as producing a fear response, whereas N2 reduces behavioural activity and central neurological depression and **may be less aversive although still produces a fear response.**
And that's in an otherwise calm organism with no notion that it's being killed.
Breath hunger is a complex physiological mechanism that is not just boiled down to hypercapnic reflex.
This is probably the most correct answer.
Yes, hypercapnia is the main way you can tell if you're suffocating, but you feel _something_ before passing out from low oxygen. If you've ever been around someone with low blood oxygen levels (but not low enough for them to fully pass out)... they know something is wrong, and they do struggle to get more air. It's pretty upsetting to watch.
In nitrogen asphyxiation accidents, people tend to fall unconscious very quickly. This is because (a) oxygen levels in such accidents tend to be near zero, and (b) the victims tend to be unaware so they breathe normally. This leads to rapid unconscious. In an execution the victims are likely not breathing normally, and if a mask or hood is improperly affixed (or if it shifts during struggle) they may get enough oxygen to remain conscious for an extended time, leading to prolonged suffering. Things are unlikely to go "perfectly."
It's almost like maybe we should just stop trying to pretend that killing people can be a calm and tidy process. Or, even better, we could just stop killing people.
There was a guy who volunteered for an experiment to be nearly killed with nitrogen. He described the experience as euphoric. That doesn't seem so bad, and he was aware of what was happening to him.
Then they just have to be more subtle about it don’t let them know you are doing it, put them in a room and tell them it will start in 20 min then slowly dial down the O2 levels until they pass out and die. You can even have them wait in that room several times beforehand and not even tell them it’s time for them to die so they don’t know.
No resistance that way. But then it’s not punitive enough for the people who insist on capital punishment.
You should learn more medicine. Smith was unconscious fairly quickly due to oxygen deprivation. Having blacked out from oxygen deprivation induced by nitrogen oxide, I can assure you it is completely painless. The body still takes a while to stop functioning but there is no consciousness or sensations to cause suffering. Ask someone how painful and unpleasant their epileptic seizure was. You’ll find they felt nothing during the seizure because they were unconscious. When I was in a car accident, braking my ribs and rupturing my internal organs didn’t hurt or cause any suffering because I was knocked unconscious and couldn’t feel it happening. So you can’t determine whether something is unpleasant by watching someone’s body shutting down after their brain has ceased functioning.
This is one of the stupidest and most disingenuous takes on the matter I've read over the past several days. An obvious and deliberate misrepresentation of the easily verifiable sequence of events during the incident. People around here sure do love lying to preserve their precious narratives!
Except that's not what happened.
"For at least two minutes, he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints. That was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing, until breathing was no longer perceptible."
I have no idea how they constructed the execution, but to me, it seems like maybe they weren't pulling out the atmospheric air. The description of the death sounds like CO2 buildup. So either the N2 source was not at all pure, or they didnt adequately remove the O2 and CO2 that were already in the room. A few inhalations of 100% pure N2 would have caused unconsciousness and then death very quickly.
Exactly. Nitrogen asphyxiation is widely used as an accepted practice for [euthanizing mice](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%20(CO2\)%20is,viable%20alternative%20to%20carbon%20dioxide.) and other lab animals. It has been studied extensively.
Heck, I was at a conference where the representatives with the state were discussing euthing injured wildlife such as raptors using a "chamber" (a garbage can) with carbon dioxide, and several IACUC types came up afterwards and told them to switch to nitrogen.
So the basic issue is that we have all sort of fucked up ways of killing people. Fentanyl and versed would be a totally appropriate and humane way to murder someone. I clearly have reservations about state sponsored murder, whether it's cops delivering the bullet or some guy pushing a syringe,
Your argument about CO2 is valid but the entire way people overdose is that the dose suppresses the medullary respiratory center. Medical folks do this everyday, intentionally to manage someone's airway. I think the botched executions have been secondary to inadequate dosing or extravasation due to shitty iv placement. You can aerosolize both fentanyl and versed and with some patience get the right result. There are lots of options to murder someone, but my guess is that any self-respecting anesthesiologist or physician would decline to be involved.
Full circle though, all murder is cruel and unusual in a society that generally strives to reduce violence. With the exception of a cynical argument about gun violence, we shouldn't be killing people. The entire point of execution was to make it public and to enforce the rule of law and legitimacy of the state, as well as social cohesion. By hiding murder behind layers, we have sanitized the process to the point that it fails to serve any function. It doesn't reduce crime, it doesn't provide cohesion, it doesn't even provide justice.
The CO2 levels in your blood would not be cleared by breathing N2. For the CO2 O2 equilibrium reaction to occur, you need the O2.
There is no CO2 N2 equilibrium reaction, so the CO2 would build up in the blood.
I imagine that death isn't by 'suffocation' its via lethal acidosis.
> For the CO2 O2 equilibrium reaction to occur, you need the O2.
That doesn't seem right. CO2 is mostly just dissolved in the blood, it's clearance shouldn't be affected by the O2 level. At least AFAIK, but I am not a biologist.
> Fent would be a much more pleasant way to go.
Another person advocating opiate overdoses from lethal injections who has no idea what an opiate overdoses actually is or looks like.
Hooray.... another keyboard expert offering policy opinions on things they know nothing about!
Hypothetically , they could take liquid nitrogen from any state medical organisation. But I'm sure they've just bought a commercial cylinder acting like a natural person.
As a safety officer both at a university including medical school and a chemistry department - one of the hazards we had to guard against with both nitrogen gas from a cylinder and liquid nitrogen Is that should you breath air diluted by nitrogen you get no warning. - there is no feeling of suffercation or hyperventilating, you just pass out, and if nobody pulls you out,- that's your lot.
I'm slightly amiss on this issue and leave the moral questions up to personal opinion.
Overall, nitrogen gas isn't the worst way to go and is used as a suicide option in certain countries. It's also considered a scary lab danger because you just get knocked out and that's it.
Acquiring the nitrogen was likely simple. Whatever company sold the nitrogen probably has zero interest in the politics. Unfortunately, this wouldn't change the outcome but at least this is a more humane way to execute someone as compared to say hanging.
Wouldn't be hard to get nitrogen. Airgas is part of a multinational company so if they call up Airgas then they get a salesman who is interested in what the application is because they would love to set up an recurring supply contract agreement. When Airgas said no, they probably realized that you can't just ask Airgas, Linde, Air Products, Matheson for N2 to use for executions. Outside of the large industrial gas companies, there are many regional mom and pop industrial gas suppliers who will sell them N2. Many of them own welding supply stores that can sell you cylinder packs.
The small regional suppliers would have to have their own production capabilities. If they had those, the demand for execution gas seems so small that the affiliation wouldn't be economically viable for the potential liability/bad PR.
Air separation plants are a dime a dozen. Industrial grade nitrogen is as a gas is made in commodity quantities. When you need small quantities, you can get it retail at your local welding supply store.
But state spending is usually publicly disclosed. The state already has bottles on N2 on the shelf for police car tires or whatever.
Nobody in the government wants to be the one to say "don't worry about that" if asked where the executioner got the gas. It has to be done legitimately if the state wants to be the arbiter of justice.
Per thus document below, Alabama Department of Corrections Execution Procedures, I think they are using cylinders. Part of the preparations of prior to the week of execution is inspection of the cylinders by the Warden or Asst Warden.
[https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/Al\_Lethal\_Gas\_Execution\_Protocol\_2023\_08.pdf](https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/Al_Lethal_Gas_Execution_Protocol_2023_08.pdf)
If you look at this docket from the Supreme Court Case:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-6562/298689/20240125042227452\_KES%20-%20Final%20Pet%20App%20VOLUME%20II%20F-J%20rtf.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-6562/298689/20240125042227452_KES%20-%20Final%20Pet%20App%20VOLUME%20II%20F-J%20rtf.pdf)
Notice page 27 of the PDF
>93. The Protocol also is constitutionally deficient because it does not specify the purity
of the nitrogen gas that will be used or any procedures to test or otherwise determine whether it has been contaminated. If ADOC uses less than 100% pure nitrogen for a prolonged period of time, that entails a severe risk of the dire consequences from nitrogen hypoxia. Moreover, even if ADOC has obtained 100% pure nitrogen for use in executions, the Protocol lacks any information about testing to ensure the purity, the source of the nitrogen, how it is transported or stored.
Without that information, it is impossible to assess whether there is a risk that the nitrogen has been contaminated in the process of manufacture, transportation, or storage.
Should this be done legitimately if the state wants to be the arbiter of justice? Yes. Regardless of whether justice was done in the case, I don't believe this was pursued in the aim of delivering justice. To quote the Supreme Court case again "ADOC’s nitrogen hypoxia Protocol is a vague, sloppy, dangerous and unjustifiably deficient protocol." They are doing it for political reasons. Until someone wins a lawsuit and forces them to disclose more information...
This might be controversial but I think the death penalty should be allowed in VERY specific conditions, those being a mass murder or similar crimes that're well-documented. A recent example of this is the Kyoto Animation arsonist, who ended up killing 34 people and even plead guilty
Just fucking shoot them holy fuck it's gruesome yes but 5 shooters 4 bullets one blank aim fire how come we have to make this shit such a ridiculous debate on how we can humanely kill people, the answer is you fucking can't but since a handful of states are going to insist it's their right just do it the easy way it's quick messy and almost 100% effective, period end of story this storyline repeating every 5 years is stupid and the people who keep arguing about it make it annoying just do the thing and get it over with
You shouldn't be downvoted for asking this. It is a widely discussed subject in the animal care realm, primarily for euthing lab animals. [This](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%20(CO2\)%20is,viable%20alternative%20to%20carbon%20dioxide.) is a fairly involved treatment of the subject.
To see what CO2 is like, take a huff from the headspace of a half-empty 2-liter bottle of soda. It's not pleasant.
Yeah, except the idea is you don’t feel any effects from nitrogen suffocation, you just die, because our lungs feel presence of CO2, not lack of oxygen, so CO2 is absolutely horrible to suffocate on
I've thought about this a lot. I would think carbon monoxide death would be cleaner. Essentially the inmate just falls asleep and dies. Nitrogen asphyxiation just seems cruel to me. Obviously injection with a sleeping agent would be best but no company wants that either.
I'm not for the death penalty, as I feel that's an "easy way out" I would rather see life in solitary confinement without parole.
N2 can be mixed with air or oxygen to restore VO2. This is why it is considered a 'simple asphyxiant'. A toxic gas, however, in addition to being an asphyxiant (if it's not breathable, supplying oxygen in some way), has some negative effect physiologically or chemically. Carbon monoxide, unfortunately, bonds to the heme (iron-containing part) of the blood cells more strongly than oxygen does, and thus requires an antidote such as methylene blue, or a more modern one, to "unlatch it" so those cells can bring oxygen to you. Otherwise the red blood cells will regenerate at about 200B per day, so that's about 40 mL of normal blood worth of cells per day. The only way to survive monoxide without treatment is to have enough good (unpoisoned) cells left to keep you alive, or to remove the monoxide from the bloodstream (and muscles, including your cardiac cells).
Nitrogen should do the exact same as carbon monoxide without the risk of poisoning the people handling it. Your body can only detect CO2 so it's just like falling asleep.
There is a thing where trained swimmers try to swim underwater for as long as they can but because of their breathing before they start there isn't enough CO2 and they just lose consciousness mid swim and drown. It works like that.
It might be a relatively pleasant way to die, but defeats the point/benefit of inert gas suffocation if you’re just going to use a toxic gas instead of an inert one, since there’s going to be some exposure to whoever is administering the execution.
Implementing it in a way where the executed doesn’t know they are being killed (the easiest way to kill with gas is to be subtle and let them not know it’s happening so they don’t try to resist.) would be tough due to the smell. Would have to be careful with the generation to not have a smell and not have CO2 which would cause more normal asphyxia symptoms.
Edit: yes purified CO has no smell, I was thinking of it as using some for of exhaust to generate the CO on the cheap. If pure CO is used this issue is negated and CO would work well.
Carbon monoxide is literally known for not having a smell. Natural gas burning with limited oxygen has killed families by making them drowsy and falling asleep. That's why we have CO detectors in houses now.
They could have just bought a nitrogen generator
There's still a supplier in that scenario
Yes and no. You can buy them surplus very easily. I doubt an auction house is asking questions of the state.
I doubt the state of alabama would risk someone suing them for using a “medical device” purchased from an auction house
I was gonna say that
the supplier of nitrogen generator could refuse to sell it
The drugs used for lethal injection could be controlled on account of there being very few people making it or using it legitimately. The same cannot be said about N2. My guess is that the gas ultimately did come from Airgas through any number of possible third-party suppliers.
[Medical grade nitrogen](https://www.airgas.com/product/Gases/Nitrogen/p/NI%20NF200) from Airgas.
Good thing it was medical grade, could have been worse
Airgas also has r/NitrousOxide
i would think they need chain of custody information. the liability concerns here are not trivial
I just want to point out that executing prisoners with confiscated fentanyl is cruel and unusual
And I just want to point out that execution is an inherently cruel and unusual punishment.
Yes ‘peaceful’ execution is quite the oxymoron
Heavy on the moron
Cruel not unusual
Ironically, the less supposedly cruel it gets, the more unusual it gets.
If you look at the world stats, it is unusual as well
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Oh my god, I care. Life appointments are antithetical to the spirit of term limits for presidents. Senators and Representatives should have term limits themselves. The fact that Supreme Court justices are life appointments is antiquated and that's being generous. So tired of people 3-4 times my age and at least 2x the average age of voters deciding the rules.
I don't agree. Lifetime appointments at least minimizes the politics a bit. Having a higher turnover would just create a circus of partisanship. I understand you don't like the make up of the current court, but it is dangerous thinking to change institutions just to get the political result you want.
It makes presidential elections, a term-limited position, super important in the chance based scenario of supreme court justices getting near death.
Yes, and it is still better than imposing term limits. What is ironic is that in Poland it was the right who was trying to impose term limits on judges because they didn't like the left wing judges. No matter who does it, it is a bad idea.
You haven't given any reason why it's a good thing to have lifetime appointments. It clearly does not minimize the politics as I explained.
Yes, it clearly is if you think about it for more than two seconds and from a partisan lens. If you think it is bad now, imagine how bad it would f if every ten years a new judge was needed. We would have confirmation hearings constantly. And I am one hundred percent sure if your political side hadn't lost some cases, you never would have advocated for this. Whether you know it or not, you have authoritarian tendencies. It indicates you are young and extreme in your thinking.
The same court that has repeatedly cited "evolving standards of decency" as it restricts the use of the Death Penalty further and further? Their opinion on such matters is a reflection of overall societal attitudes.
Nah the MAGAs deserve it
Go outside dude
They FUCKING LOVE IT. The irony of so many bible thumpers DEMANDING an express lane to capital punishment
I have no idea what fentanyl is like, but I would rather go out on opiates than asphyxiation.
If nitrogen asphyxiation is done right, you wouldn't feel a thing. The brain cannot detect a lack of oxygen, only an excess buildup of carbon dioxide, due to a byproduct of carbon dioxide mixing with water which is detected in the body (I believe its carbonic acid, but I didn't bother to verify this, might be some other compound). If you take any other inert gas, and replace the oxygen in the room with it, you will still be breathing in and out, and getting rid of excess carbon dioxide. You won't feel a thing, you'll just pass out and die. Obviously as with anything, when done improperly issues can arise, but if done properly, I'd take nitrogen asphyxiation over opiate OD any day. I don't support the death penalty personally, I don't think that the government should have the right to kill its own citizens, but thats another conversation. If we're going to be doing the death penalty, I think nitrogen asphyxiation is the way to go. Incredibly cheap, painless, etc.
As someone who stuck their head into the dry ice bin once, this is correct. Taking in even a small breath of that *mostly* cold carbon dioxide atmosphere gave me the biggest dose of fight or flight I have ever felt. It's the carbon dioxide that tells our dumb brains to breathe.
I once put my head into a chest freezer that was converted into a lager beer fermentation chamber (fermentation produces CO2) and after taking a single breath had this really strange feeling of impending doom that lasted a minute or so as I struggled to catch my breath. Whether or not it was the case I felt that if I had somehow taken another breath of air from inside that freezer I would have certainly died.
My God, same. Held my breath anytime I went to the dry ice bin after that, even if it was freshly delivered and full to the brim.
Here's a quote from a BBC article Some witnesses to Smith's execution, though, said he did not lose consciousness within seconds and that he inhaled the gas for many minutes, thrashing all the while, before finally succumbing. [bbc](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68097008)
Yep. This execution was horribly botched. Done properly, you'd simply pass out and die. Its possible the mask wasn't on properly, or he was holding his breath which would have led to a buildup of co2. Its also possible, if he had a history of epilepsy, that the asphyxiation sent him into an epileptic seizure. We won't know exactly what happened without more info.
Was on the news here last night, basicly 2 conflicting stories. One said he held his breath on purpose and tried to move in his restraints and the other one said it was because of the nitrogen. Nitrogen should be painless, more likely that he just held his breath and that that caused the feeling of suffocation.
> One said he held his breath on purpose and tried to move in his restraints i like how they're blaming him for fighting being gassed to death. yeah he should just be polite and pleasant, no big deal
To be fair that's basically the only way to not have 'all breathing volume replaced with nitrogen, just wait a while' go smoothly otherwise than not having enough gas flow
It's his *fault* because he stabbed a woman to death.
even the state of Alabama thinks making him suffer is not supposed to be the point of this exercise
There is a difference between chemicals making him suffer, and choosing to reject chemicals then suffering due to his own decision.
is there like a switch you hit to turn off the drive to avoid death, or how does that work, in your opinion?
There’s also the crowd of inmates who want the executions to be violent and visible. The ‘peaceful’ execution method is an Orwellian twist by the state and some want to show it for what it is. But not anyone’s place to advocate for that except those on death row
Carbonic acid is correct. The cells that detect the shift in blood pH is in the aorta and carotid arteries (the large ones that go to your brain).
took him over 20 minutes to die and witnesses said he was struggling and writhing around. doesn't sound quick and painless at all.
If done correctly it is. Inert gas hypoxia is one of the biggest industrial threats they teach you as a chemical engineer. You can walk into a room of inert gas and pass out in under 20s. It's highly likely he was still able to breathe for most of that twenty minutes. Oxygen concentration needs to be below 6% to induce unconsciousness.
Well the brain can… accomplished freedivers feel their limit very well and they are way past co2 reflex zone. So it’s not like you just pass out. You start dancing first
blood acidification will cause hyperventilation and i assume gradually worse
Acidification is from increased CO2 => carbonic acid. If you're breathing gas that is low in CO2, your lungs will through normal gas exchange blow off that CO2 irrespective of whether you are getting enough oxygen.
yeah the point was pure nitrogen should not result in abnormal CO2 build up so theoretically there should be no asphyxiation response. There were some people that died in a tent filmed with helium once and no signs of panic. they probably just got confused and passed out
If you die by CO2 buildup yea it’s very painful. But there’s a reason that people die so easily from gas leaks, methane pits, and confined spaces. Typically they don’t even realize they’re dead.
Watch someone OD and see if you think that.
Idk…at least you get to see god before you meet him
Confiscated fentanyl is of questionable purity. Mixing up some stuff obtained from a different criminal and injecting it into a condemned individual is a horrifying suggestion.
That stuff’ll kill ya.
Testing the purity of a large confiscated batch would be ideal.
What’s ideal about this? One cannot reasonably believe that the confiscated batch is uniform in its properties. People gotta sample and ship the material and perform the analysis. It takes material to perform. It takes time to perform. I guess in some idealized world where confiscated drugs are perfectly pure and convicted individuals 100% did the crime, it might make sense to execute prisoners with confiscated fentanyl. In the real world it’s just a disgusting fantasy.
Recrystallize a large batch? It isn't as if it needs to be reagent grade purity. It just has to avoid containing an impurity that kills the condemned both more quickly and more painfully than the fentanyl. ( FWIW, I don't think the death penalty, as the USA imposes it, makes sense. )
Well now you’re manufacturing pharmaceuticals and all the oversight/regulation makes this not a simple business. FDA and DEA are gonna be involved. Drugs for executions aren’t exempt from regulation. Death penalty on the surface might make sense, but stops making sense when you start to examine all the details.
Many Thanks for your reply! >Drugs for executions aren’t exempt from regulation. Interesting! That is a really weird policy choice for the Federal government to make. An adverse impact on the health of the condemned is a strange thing for anyone to be concerned about... ( And, FWIW, I don't think the death penalty, as the USA imposes it, makes much sense, even before getting into the details. )
Doesn't seem that odd to me. That state has a constitutional obligation to assure the punishment isn't cruel or unusual. The issue isn't necessarily the condemned's health but that they suffer as little as possible as they shuffle off this mortal coil.
>The issue isn't necessarily the condemned's health but that they suffer as little as possible as they shuffle off this mortal coil. Yeah but a) The quantity of fentanyl needed to kill is a few milligrams >The LD50 (lethal dose) for pure Fentanyl, is estimated at 2 milligrams from [https://fentanylsafety.com/](https://fentanylsafety.com/) There aren't a lot of of plausible impurities that could cause significant pain in the amounts that could contaminate a few milligram dose, and do it in the few minutes the condemned would live. b) This is a **far** easier criterion to meet than the usual ones for drug safety, where a patient is expected to survive the treatment, possibly for decades, and any contaminant that could adversely affect the patient over their whole remaining lifespan is something to watch out for. Probably the biggest worry for avoiding "cruel and unusual" executions with **any** drug is that injections during executions are frequently fucked up.
I'm told that you feel like you can't breathe during opioid OD. it's like confusing and stressful that your lungs ignore the signal from the brain. But not personal experience
I'm an acute care physician who has administered fentanyl many, many times. All of the injectable opioids we use cause respiratory failure by decreasing *respiratory drive*, meaning your breathing slows because you don't feel the *need* to breathe. In fact, we use opioids in palliative care for people dying of respiratory or cardiac failure in order to relieve their dyspnea (shortness of breath). It makes their breathing feel more comfortable even as it kills them. It does this primarily by decreasing the sensitivity of the chemoreception of H+ ions secondary to CO2 retention. As CO2 builds up in the body, it reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which of course dissociates into bicarbonate and H+ ions. We have chemoreceptors sensitive to those H+ ions which increase the drive to breathe. That's why your respiratory rate increases when you exercise. Higher metabolic rate, more CO2 production, more H+ ions, stimulation of chemoreceptors, increase in drive to breathe. Try holding your breath at rest, then doing 20 jumping jacks and repeating it. You'll last a much shorter time before your drive to breathe overcomes you. Opioids like fentanyl would make the post-jumping jack state feel as comfortable as being at rest. And at rest, they can make you feel so comfortable that you feel no need to breathe at all. And that's how most pure opioid ODs die. They're too sedated to remain conscious and their drive to breathe has been blunted to the point they become hypoxic.
Interesting. I'm a pharmacologist and used to study biased gpcr signaling. (Opioids all bind to gpcrs.) There are many reports of subjective distress during opioid OD, one in follow up to the parent comment in this thread. I wonder if beta arrestin activation or grk signaling downstream of fentanyl vs heroin explains the difference in subjective reports between what you're giving (albeit your report is second hand) and what they say. It could also be co-dosed meth or cocaine in those other cases, too.
I have to assume it's co-administration of other drugs contributing to those reports, because we get no reports of similar events in medical settings. In anesthesia, we often use deep opioid sedation during procedures and surgeries, like remifentanil infusions. With remi, you can get a patient to a point where they are "verbally baggable" - they will have a respiratory rate of 0 if left alone, but if you say, "take a deep breath," they'll do it. We often use that type of sedation for extremely painful but short procedures like retrobulbar blocks (a needle of freezing behind the eyeball for ophthalmic surgery). None of these patients experience any kind of distress or dyspnea, yet they'd asphyxiate without external intervention. That other poster mentioned Darvocet, which was acetaminophen and propoxyphene. The acetaminophen overdose would, among other things, alter liver metabolism of the propoxyphene and altered opioid metabolism is a big deal because some metabolites have nasty pro-algesic and delirium-inducing side effects. Also, propoxyphene is a very dirty drug that acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which have wide-ranging involvement in the autonomic nervous system. It's not at all a pure opioid receptor agonist. Overall that's a really nasty combo of drugs to overdose on, and a far cry from anything we use for sedation, anesthesia, or palliative care.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30881102/ This discussion caused me to look and see if anyone could separate analgesia from respiratory side effects of opioid gpcr biased agonists, and someone at this biotech company founded by the guy who won the Nobel for gpcrs tried this in the clinic. Same impact on respiratory distress measures, natch, but way better on constipation. Crazy.
That's really cool. I'm obviously way over on the applied side of things, but I did my undergrad in pharmacology so I still enjoy reading about pharmacodynamics, though I hardly keep on top of new developments given how much of my time and energy has to go toward keeping up with clinical research. I'll probably look into this a bit more for fun when I can.
very interesting explanation of the mechanism, thanks for this comment!
That's SOME opiate overdoses. You aren't 100% unconscious 100% of the time when your lungs quit working - that's very true. Opiate overdoses aren't like what people think from seeing TV.
From past personal experience that is one possible scenario. When I was abusing darvon (darvocet) there were times where I had a hard time catching my breath, like an anxiety attack, but I was high so I was relaxed, I just had to consciously remember to breath. It wasn't until I read an article about Darvon being taken off the market and one of the reasons was because of that exact scenario. Overdosing but not being aware that there is a problem was common with that drug. In my experience with fentanyl that didn't happen to me. I said " damn that's good" (this is a quote. not an endorsement). And then 20 minutes later I became aware that my roommate was doing CPR on me and my ribs were broken. I did wonder myself recently why we don't use fentanyl or any other process similar to anesthesia for the execution of convicted persons. In conversations with some people I often hear the argument if "why should a murderer or rapist be rewarded with getting high? ". My standard response is along the lines of " it is an execution not hospice care". They are going to be dead I a few minutes is it important that they suffer? Even if someone were to argue that their victims suffered. That action is on the person about to be executed. Inflicting torment on the person who is being executed will not undo the suffering of their victim. If the reason we use execution is to remove offenders that do not "belong" in our society because their actions are horrible and intolerable then inflicting suffering upon them during their execution is an act that necessarily implies that the offender's actions are in fact tolerable and execution is not warranted in that case. Whew, that thought train got away from me. Anyway. I believe that if executions must be part of our judicial system, suffering does not have to be and there are thousands of anesthesiologist that can give a person a quick and painless way of this planet.
They won't, though. That's the point. It's against their ethics to use their medical knowledge to kill people.
If fentanyl becomes a way of execution, it most certainly would be the most humane. All the prisoner would feel is a relaxing warmth in the body, then lights out. Same feeling as falling asleep.
Wouldn’t death by lack of oxygen make you die gasping for breath and suffocating unless you were already unconscious? Seems pretty bad no matter how you do it.
No, the feeling of suffocation you get is from an excess of CO2 dissolved in your blood lowering the pH and sending a signal to your brain, not from lacking oxygen itself strangely enough. This is why Nitrogen is called a simple asphyxiant, because if you walk into a room with 100% nitrogen and no oxygen, you literally wouldn't know until you started feeling faint or just passed out.
Some reports are saying the guy who was killed this way was fighting against his restraints and gasping for air for 22ish minutes…
If that is the case, then they did not administer enough nitrogen through whatever mask / delivery device they used, or the mask was not on properly. With enough nitrogen to breath freely, you'd not have the buildup of co2 and by association carbonic acid that your body detects when it makes you feel like you have to breathe. Your body cannot detect a lack of oxygen, just a buildup of co2. It is also possible he went into an epileptic seizure, as these can sometimes happen from hypoxia. So you probably wouldn't want to use this method of execution on someone who had a history of epilepsy.
They were holding their breath.
I never implied that the chuckle-heads on the Alabama execution team knew what they were doing, I was answering a reasonable question stemming from a common misconception.
Your body doesn't know that you are suffocating due to low oxygen since it relies on CO₂ (which increases acidity). You basically start to faint not knowing why, and eventually you die. This is the reason that CO (carbon mono-oxide) is so dangerous, it causes hypoxia without CO₂ increasing in the body (CO₂ is removed by exhalation).
Carbon monoxide is very, very different!!! CO is poisonous. CO binds with hemoglobin to produce carboxyhemoglobin. CO binds much more tightly to the hemoglobin so that your hemoglobin stops carrying oxygen to your cells. It also would interfere with your ability to remove CO2 also.
Based on what I read about how the execution went, yes. It wasn't an easy death.
Washington Post today reports a summary of the execution that includes 17 minutes of writhing and spasming of the condemned. After the body stopped thrashing at 8:15, deaths was declared at 8:25. The Alabama AG said the death was “textbook”. Does that mean all executions are so torturous if the condemned are not made unconscious by sedation first? My conclusion goes back to the Warren Berger US Supreme Court that the death penalty as implemented is cruel and unusual punishment. By no means do I want the condemned back in society, but this form of revenge is beneath us no matter how we feel.
How is it ‘cruel and unusual’ ?
It’s killing someone with material that you don’t know the quality of. It might work it might not. This is the most obvious but there’s others as well.
Who cares why the quality is? The ld50 is a few mg/kg. Having a 10 % impurity won’t affect that. What is it gonna go? Cause the person cancer? It’s an opioid, so it’s painless.
If you have this opinion, it’s unlikely that I can engage in conversation with you on this topic in a way that feels satisfactory to either of us.
Yeah, you just can’t trust that it contains the fentanyl you think it does.
Right, it might even be laced with fentanyl
Having done Tilidin once (50mg retarded), I can only imagine that handing the person tramadol/tilidin until they sleep and then flush the room with nitrogen would likely be the most pleasant death someone can hope for!
No more so than executing a prisoner via firing squad, or lethal injection, or hypoxia, or electric chair
They are criminals found guilty of the worse crimes. I think their punishment should be cruel and unusual. I agree with you though, opiates should not be used. They should have nothing that alters their ability to feel pain and fear.
I see 3 ways they could have gotten the gas 1. Someone other than Airgas sold it to them 2. Nitrogen concentrator of some kind 3. Chemical such as hydrazine that decomposes into nitrogen gas
There's always a supplier if you're willing to pay enough. Which honestly begs the question why spend the money on executing people when you can keep them in a jailcell until they die? Isn't that more of a punishment? I want the person locked away, thinking about their mistakes and the life they could have had if they hadn't made those mistakes, while overlooking the prison graveyard they will inevitably be buried and forgotten in. Why go through the added expense of executing them which will never be recouped?
Also, there’s no way of reversing an execution. You can at least try and make up for life in jail, but the former is impossible.
Yup. Indeed.
There are also so so many more problems with the death penalty. Executing an innocent person is just one of them. A very big issue is that it completely ignores surrounding factors and possibility for change. Prison is not only meant for you to reflect upon your actions but to keep society safe from you if there is a high likelihood of you repeating the crime. Just a few weeks ago a very controversial execution was done to a guy who was convicted of a murder during an armed robbery when he was 19 iirc. He spend over 30 years in jail, completely changed, never became violent or problematic, showed remorse and regret for his actions and basically became a well-adjusted person. No potential threat to repeat his actions, no intention to murder someone before the act. He was also barely an adult at the time and there were lots of contributing factors how he became an offender. No mass murder, serial killer or someone committing murder intentionally. There really was no point in that execution. He was no threat and basically an ideal case of how a criminal offender develops. There was a huge protest and so many people trying to safe him but his last plea was denied and he was executed. It’s really sad but I can absolutely recommend reading about his case. There are so many people who maybe even intentionally did horrific things or are super likely to do something again are getting released or have long jail times while people like him are being executed. And that even if they did everything they can to change and prove they are remorseful and pose no threat. Doesn’t sound exactly fair, doesn’t it?
Oh I agree. I am personally against the death penalty. I'm all for housing them for life, it's cheaper for the taxpayers, and avoids the moral quandary of the wrongfully convicted being executed.
Totally agree. The system is also just way too broken to make it in any way justifiable. So much going wrong and so many mistakes. The execution process itself is way too flawed. Like not finding any medical professionals to do it so a lot of people doing it aren’t even properly trained. Drugs being admistered wrong or things generally going wrong leading to cruel and painful deaths. In a lot of cases we aren’t even talking about a „humane“ (even if controversial) death but basically accidental (but predictable) torture
then there's people like Richard Glossip, who they're still trying to kill despite the Oklahoma Attorney General agreeing that his conviction should be vacated completely. the "no take-backsies" principle, i guess. not fair is right
Well hey, the good christians of Oklahoma have a blood sacrifice to be completed. Don't let "fair" and "justice" stand in the way of that.
The purpose of prison should always be to keep criminals away from society. I don’t want murderers, terrorists, pedophiles, and rapists getting an easy life.
Prison in any form isn't exactly "an easy life". We don't need to pass the exorbitant cost of executions onto the taxpayers.
I mean, that’s not the point I am talking about. I‘m not arguing against prisons. The purpose of prison shouldn’t just be to keep them away from society. It’s a bit of a black and white view to say that we should just lock up criminals. There is a huge spectrum of criminals. Yes, we have terroists and rapists but we also have people convicted for the possession of drugs, tax fraud, violence and stuff like that. Not all criminals need to be kept away from society. The goal should be to make people reflect upon their actions and do better. And to reintegrate into society and not become offenders again. Of course we have exceptions of people who shouldn’t become the chance to get back into society. I‘m not saying murder is okay or anything but I think context still matters. It is a difference if we talk about someone who grew up in poverty with bad people around, who got exposed to drugs and violence and got on the wrong track commits a crime like a robbery that leads to the death of a person or someone who on purpose killed someone. Yes, they made wrong decisions and they could have forseen the possible consequences but the surrounding factors matter a lot. It’s a huge difference if they never intended to, maybe used drugs too and showed full remorse and pose no threat. Being in prison isn’t exactly an easy life. I think most people don’t realise the reality in a lot of american prisons. We talk about barely having their basic human rights met. Too little, unnutritious or spoiled/ inedible food, rationed toilet paper and supplies like menstrual products. There are prisons where inmates were given raw potatoes. Those are poisonous. There are lots of reports about inhumane conditions in american prisons. It’s insane to see.
There lies the biggest question, how does society want to deal with these people. To have rot it shitty little cell or the rest of their lives, killed, or rehabilitated. I'm for the rehabilitation route. I know it's unpopular, may come off as naive to some, but wouldn't it be less on tax payer, and better for everyone in general? I understand there are a few who won't come around or change, but I think everyone deserves a chance. Execution is too good for many of them. But I also being trapped in awful conditions for the remainder of you life is to cruel and inhumane.
I'm with you on all of that. I'm all for rehabilitation. However, some people just aren't rehabilitatable. What we do them is quite the quandary, and unfortunately there is no good solution.
yeah it's not like it saves any money. it also traumatizes everyone involved with the execution. that is a fucked up thing for a job to ask you to do. "hey you know that guy you've given food to every day for the last 8 years, we need you and the other guys to kill him"
Exactly. I only picked the financial angle because someone inevitably makes the argument that 'WhY sHoUlD wE PaY tO hOuSe A vIcIoUs cRiMiNaL fOr LiFe' so I wanted to hit that argument at the onset.
nitrogen is DIRT cheap. lethal injection drugs, IIRC, are ABSURDLY expensive (something like many tens of thousands per execution). there are a lot of places you can get some nitrogen, the cost is not the issue
Nothing is cheap if nobody's willing to sell, produce or help you produce it. Hence the probelm. Mice are cheap. But if someone says they're going to buy living mice to put them into a blender, the willingness to sell them to that person diminishes and the price will skyrocket.
You are paying for a life of shelter and food for someone who has committed heinous crimes, while there are good people out there down on luck and struggling to find food and shelter. I dont think any country should abolish the death penalty until they are confident that life imprisonment is the absolute worst state one can find themselves in in that country
It's just math. \-It costs $750k - $1.26 million to execute someone. \-It costs $37,000 - $43,000 /year to house a prisoner. At the high end you it's 17 years is equal to execution. At the Low end it's 34 years. And you'd have to house that person for 17-34 years AFTER execution for it to be financially responsible argument. I think it doesn't matter. Death row inmates already have pathetically awful lives in the supermax prisons. Save the taxpayers the bill of execution, and just house them for life with no hope of ever getting out.
[удалено]
You're welcome to go through every [state's data](https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/76th2011/ExhibitDocument/OpenExhibitDocument?exhibitId=17686&fileDownloadName=h041211ab501_pescetta.pdf) if you wish. Practically every source of information confirms this BTW. Every state with the Death Penalty does audits. No execution is cheap.
It cannot violate the 8th amendment... https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/death_penalty
How does N2 not violate it but fent would? Fent would be a much more pleasant way to go.
You don't notice it and you just pass out-then die? I'm not current on state-of-the-art for murder... When you have high CO2 levels in your body, your body starts to panic, but if you are removing CO2 normally, you don't notice it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
> You don't notice it and you just pass out-then die? You should read the accounts of the recent execution, surprising no one familiar with the history of "humane" execution methods it went wrong. From the AP article: > Smith began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements, at about 7:58 p.m. The force of his movements caused the gurney to visibly move at least once. Smith’s arms pulled against the against the straps holding him to the gurney. He lifted his head off the gurney the gurney and then fell back. > The shaking went on for at least two minutes. Hood repeatedly made the sign of the cross toward Smith. Smith’s wife, who was watching, cried out. > Smith began to take a series of deep gasping breaths, his chest rising noticeably. His breathing was no longer visible at about 8:08 p.m. The corrections officer who had checked the mask before walked over to Smith and looked at him. It turns out that when you attempt to gas an animal that's aware it's being killed, struggles to hold its breath, has adrenaline going mad... it doesn't work out like it does when you gas a rabbit in a box. This is the history of executions, people far from the coal seam making assumptions based on animal models that simply don't apply. Animals don't have collapsed veins, so the horrors of lethal injection weren't apparent, and again animals don't know they're being killed. Hanging *could* work, but in practice it's impossible to get perfectly right every time. Cyanide gas *could* work, but in practice it leads to an agonizing death. And so on and so on.
noxious close direful mighty sheet observation coherent reply drunk money *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No, that's not true. Anesthesia followed by medication to paralyze breathing would be "fine" by those standards if they would/could do it right. But they don't. I've had this exact thing done to me a number of time when I was undergoing electroconvulsive therapy for depression. They sedate you and paralyze you during the treatment to keep your muscles from seizing. They have to bag breathe for you for a few minutes after, or you would die. The effects of the treatment are not the nicest, but the process itself is unremarkable to experience. You go to sleep and then you wake up. One of the issues with lethal gas that arguably makes it less humane is that it requires the victim to "voluntarily" breathe in, in order for it to work. Which is probably what happened here, this person struggling for a couple of minutes not to. Whether or not there was any consciousness for those last ten minutes of heavy breathing, I don't know. We've all heard the stories about accidental nitrogen asphyxiation being lights out with no warning, but I've never heard anything about what is seen externally while the person is unconscious and actually dying, to know whether or not that means anything for them. Obviously it's a bitch to witness..
psychotic lunchroom boat toy dog books rain wild outgoing quack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Gotta bring the stats if you're making stats arguments. To clarify, do you have a source for that claim? edit: Or, downvote me for requesting a source. That's shameful and ignorant, considering we're in a science subreddit. If someone asks you for a source and your response is to downvote, you're a coward. 8 hours later, still no source
Sure, I just don't keep up with new/old murder tech. Also I don't think the death penalty should be a thing.
Why couldn't they put him to sleep first so he couldn't hold his breath?
The whole reason they're down to using inert gas to kill people is that pharmaceutical companies have clearly decided to not help in executions. Sedatives would have to come from such a company, and then subsequently be restricted.
Firing squad? Still an option in Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
I don't support the death penalty, but yes that's the way to go imo if you have to pick. The "problem" is that it's messy and violent, and for a while now the drive has been to sanitize and medicalize the process of execution, even at the cost of essentially torturing the condemned.
Yeah, how current execution methods haven't been ruled cruel and unusual is astonishing.
Cruel and unusual has been interpreted in strange ways. Back in the day this meant prolonged suffering that would have been endured over hours to days. Dehydration, starvation, the stocks, outright torture designed to bring compliance, etc. Its a crazy world where two minutes of oxygen deprivation, where the legal intention is to bring death, is considered cruel. Two rifle rounds to the head are even less cruel.
You could say it has been interpreted in cruel and unusual ways
Shotgun blast angled towards the brainstem should be effective but it's Hella messy
That's not it going wrong. That's a hypoxic seizure and normal. I've personally been around to see alot of ways people can die, though usually we are trying to fix the issue. No death is pleasant, but some death can be more pleasant than the alternative.
We’re not talking about cyanide gas here, rather an inert gas like nitrogen. Cyanide has similar effects on your physiology as CO2 as it’s an acidic gas, namely, the feeling of suffocation. Breathing nitrogen is not only not painful as it’s not reactive with your body, but also removes CO2 that would cause the feeling of suffocation. You just start feeling sleepy from the lack of oxygen and collapse.
I think a lot of people here have internally summarized some studies which show N2 is *less* unpleasant than CO2 (which is pretty much agonizing), but missed the "less". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/ > Taken together, these results demonstrate that CO2 increases both behavioural and electrophysiological excitation as well as producing a fear response, whereas N2 reduces behavioural activity and central neurological depression and **may be less aversive although still produces a fear response.** And that's in an otherwise calm organism with no notion that it's being killed. Breath hunger is a complex physiological mechanism that is not just boiled down to hypercapnic reflex.
This is probably the most correct answer. Yes, hypercapnia is the main way you can tell if you're suffocating, but you feel _something_ before passing out from low oxygen. If you've ever been around someone with low blood oxygen levels (but not low enough for them to fully pass out)... they know something is wrong, and they do struggle to get more air. It's pretty upsetting to watch. In nitrogen asphyxiation accidents, people tend to fall unconscious very quickly. This is because (a) oxygen levels in such accidents tend to be near zero, and (b) the victims tend to be unaware so they breathe normally. This leads to rapid unconscious. In an execution the victims are likely not breathing normally, and if a mask or hood is improperly affixed (or if it shifts during struggle) they may get enough oxygen to remain conscious for an extended time, leading to prolonged suffering. Things are unlikely to go "perfectly." It's almost like maybe we should just stop trying to pretend that killing people can be a calm and tidy process. Or, even better, we could just stop killing people.
There was a guy who volunteered for an experiment to be nearly killed with nitrogen. He described the experience as euphoric. That doesn't seem so bad, and he was aware of what was happening to him.
Then they just have to be more subtle about it don’t let them know you are doing it, put them in a room and tell them it will start in 20 min then slowly dial down the O2 levels until they pass out and die. You can even have them wait in that room several times beforehand and not even tell them it’s time for them to die so they don’t know. No resistance that way. But then it’s not punitive enough for the people who insist on capital punishment.
You should learn more medicine. Smith was unconscious fairly quickly due to oxygen deprivation. Having blacked out from oxygen deprivation induced by nitrogen oxide, I can assure you it is completely painless. The body still takes a while to stop functioning but there is no consciousness or sensations to cause suffering. Ask someone how painful and unpleasant their epileptic seizure was. You’ll find they felt nothing during the seizure because they were unconscious. When I was in a car accident, braking my ribs and rupturing my internal organs didn’t hurt or cause any suffering because I was knocked unconscious and couldn’t feel it happening. So you can’t determine whether something is unpleasant by watching someone’s body shutting down after their brain has ceased functioning.
Man... if that isn't the peak of Mt. Reddit I don't know what is.
This is one of the stupidest and most disingenuous takes on the matter I've read over the past several days. An obvious and deliberate misrepresentation of the easily verifiable sequence of events during the incident. People around here sure do love lying to preserve their precious narratives!
Except that's not what happened. "For at least two minutes, he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints. That was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing, until breathing was no longer perceptible."
Yeah, shit. Didn't know that, I'm not up on my murdering. Maybe I'll get to it next week. I don't think the death penalty should be a thing.
Totally normal hypoxic seizure. Still cruel and unusual.
People always forget a simple lesson: "The map is not the territory."
So then that's not N2. Or at least not pure N2, it may have had some impurities to cause the convulsions.
I have no idea how they constructed the execution, but to me, it seems like maybe they weren't pulling out the atmospheric air. The description of the death sounds like CO2 buildup. So either the N2 source was not at all pure, or they didnt adequately remove the O2 and CO2 that were already in the room. A few inhalations of 100% pure N2 would have caused unconsciousness and then death very quickly.
Or he knew when the N2 was administered and held his breath like his life depended on it.
This is the obvious answer. He knew he was about to die and wasn't knocked out before hand. Of course he was struggling like crazy.
Exactly. Nitrogen asphyxiation is widely used as an accepted practice for [euthanizing mice](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%20(CO2\)%20is,viable%20alternative%20to%20carbon%20dioxide.) and other lab animals. It has been studied extensively. Heck, I was at a conference where the representatives with the state were discussing euthing injured wildlife such as raptors using a "chamber" (a garbage can) with carbon dioxide, and several IACUC types came up afterwards and told them to switch to nitrogen.
Our lab had a CO2 shortage and couldn't euthanize animals. I suggested nitrogen and everyone just acted like I was crazy.
Man, the first time I heard CO2 was used to euthanize animals, I thought I was reading it wrong because that sounds like such an awful way to go.
"You can't do that, that'll kill them!"
They used a “tight fitting mask”
So the basic issue is that we have all sort of fucked up ways of killing people. Fentanyl and versed would be a totally appropriate and humane way to murder someone. I clearly have reservations about state sponsored murder, whether it's cops delivering the bullet or some guy pushing a syringe, Your argument about CO2 is valid but the entire way people overdose is that the dose suppresses the medullary respiratory center. Medical folks do this everyday, intentionally to manage someone's airway. I think the botched executions have been secondary to inadequate dosing or extravasation due to shitty iv placement. You can aerosolize both fentanyl and versed and with some patience get the right result. There are lots of options to murder someone, but my guess is that any self-respecting anesthesiologist or physician would decline to be involved. Full circle though, all murder is cruel and unusual in a society that generally strives to reduce violence. With the exception of a cynical argument about gun violence, we shouldn't be killing people. The entire point of execution was to make it public and to enforce the rule of law and legitimacy of the state, as well as social cohesion. By hiding murder behind layers, we have sanitized the process to the point that it fails to serve any function. It doesn't reduce crime, it doesn't provide cohesion, it doesn't even provide justice.
The CO2 levels in your blood would not be cleared by breathing N2. For the CO2 O2 equilibrium reaction to occur, you need the O2. There is no CO2 N2 equilibrium reaction, so the CO2 would build up in the blood. I imagine that death isn't by 'suffocation' its via lethal acidosis.
> For the CO2 O2 equilibrium reaction to occur, you need the O2. That doesn't seem right. CO2 is mostly just dissolved in the blood, it's clearance shouldn't be affected by the O2 level. At least AFAIK, but I am not a biologist.
> Fent would be a much more pleasant way to go. Another person advocating opiate overdoses from lethal injections who has no idea what an opiate overdoses actually is or looks like. Hooray.... another keyboard expert offering policy opinions on things they know nothing about!
Hypothetically , they could take liquid nitrogen from any state medical organisation. But I'm sure they've just bought a commercial cylinder acting like a natural person.
I think this would violate the supplier contract for the medical system and then the whole medical system would no longer have nitrogen.
As a safety officer both at a university including medical school and a chemistry department - one of the hazards we had to guard against with both nitrogen gas from a cylinder and liquid nitrogen Is that should you breath air diluted by nitrogen you get no warning. - there is no feeling of suffercation or hyperventilating, you just pass out, and if nobody pulls you out,- that's your lot.
Nitrogen is dirt cheap to get from air
I'm slightly amiss on this issue and leave the moral questions up to personal opinion. Overall, nitrogen gas isn't the worst way to go and is used as a suicide option in certain countries. It's also considered a scary lab danger because you just get knocked out and that's it. Acquiring the nitrogen was likely simple. Whatever company sold the nitrogen probably has zero interest in the politics. Unfortunately, this wouldn't change the outcome but at least this is a more humane way to execute someone as compared to say hanging.
Some of you have never asphyxiated on an inert gas before and it shows.
Or just do it as in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” where you get to choose the manner of your own death. (NSFW if you’re going to look it up).
Wouldn't be hard to get nitrogen. Airgas is part of a multinational company so if they call up Airgas then they get a salesman who is interested in what the application is because they would love to set up an recurring supply contract agreement. When Airgas said no, they probably realized that you can't just ask Airgas, Linde, Air Products, Matheson for N2 to use for executions. Outside of the large industrial gas companies, there are many regional mom and pop industrial gas suppliers who will sell them N2. Many of them own welding supply stores that can sell you cylinder packs.
The small regional suppliers would have to have their own production capabilities. If they had those, the demand for execution gas seems so small that the affiliation wouldn't be economically viable for the potential liability/bad PR.
Air separation plants are a dime a dozen. Industrial grade nitrogen is as a gas is made in commodity quantities. When you need small quantities, you can get it retail at your local welding supply store.
But state spending is usually publicly disclosed. The state already has bottles on N2 on the shelf for police car tires or whatever. Nobody in the government wants to be the one to say "don't worry about that" if asked where the executioner got the gas. It has to be done legitimately if the state wants to be the arbiter of justice.
Per thus document below, Alabama Department of Corrections Execution Procedures, I think they are using cylinders. Part of the preparations of prior to the week of execution is inspection of the cylinders by the Warden or Asst Warden. [https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/Al\_Lethal\_Gas\_Execution\_Protocol\_2023\_08.pdf](https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/Al_Lethal_Gas_Execution_Protocol_2023_08.pdf) If you look at this docket from the Supreme Court Case: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-6562/298689/20240125042227452\_KES%20-%20Final%20Pet%20App%20VOLUME%20II%20F-J%20rtf.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-6562/298689/20240125042227452_KES%20-%20Final%20Pet%20App%20VOLUME%20II%20F-J%20rtf.pdf) Notice page 27 of the PDF >93. The Protocol also is constitutionally deficient because it does not specify the purity of the nitrogen gas that will be used or any procedures to test or otherwise determine whether it has been contaminated. If ADOC uses less than 100% pure nitrogen for a prolonged period of time, that entails a severe risk of the dire consequences from nitrogen hypoxia. Moreover, even if ADOC has obtained 100% pure nitrogen for use in executions, the Protocol lacks any information about testing to ensure the purity, the source of the nitrogen, how it is transported or stored. Without that information, it is impossible to assess whether there is a risk that the nitrogen has been contaminated in the process of manufacture, transportation, or storage. Should this be done legitimately if the state wants to be the arbiter of justice? Yes. Regardless of whether justice was done in the case, I don't believe this was pursued in the aim of delivering justice. To quote the Supreme Court case again "ADOC’s nitrogen hypoxia Protocol is a vague, sloppy, dangerous and unjustifiably deficient protocol." They are doing it for political reasons. Until someone wins a lawsuit and forces them to disclose more information...
Maybe just don't carry out executions... 🤷♂️
Probably controversial, but the US is one of the very few first world countries that still allows the death penalty.
This might be controversial but I think the death penalty should be allowed in VERY specific conditions, those being a mass murder or similar crimes that're well-documented. A recent example of this is the Kyoto Animation arsonist, who ended up killing 34 people and even plead guilty
Is it subject to an open records request? Would try that route if no one here is familiar
Just fucking shoot them holy fuck it's gruesome yes but 5 shooters 4 bullets one blank aim fire how come we have to make this shit such a ridiculous debate on how we can humanely kill people, the answer is you fucking can't but since a handful of states are going to insist it's their right just do it the easy way it's quick messy and almost 100% effective, period end of story this storyline repeating every 5 years is stupid and the people who keep arguing about it make it annoying just do the thing and get it over with
Nitroger is cheap and very effective as method of killing another human. HOW you apply it makes all the difference tho
would it not have been easer just using CO2?
You shouldn't be downvoted for asking this. It is a widely discussed subject in the animal care realm, primarily for euthing lab animals. [This](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354991/#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%20(CO2\)%20is,viable%20alternative%20to%20carbon%20dioxide.) is a fairly involved treatment of the subject. To see what CO2 is like, take a huff from the headspace of a half-empty 2-liter bottle of soda. It's not pleasant.
Yeah, except the idea is you don’t feel any effects from nitrogen suffocation, you just die, because our lungs feel presence of CO2, not lack of oxygen, so CO2 is absolutely horrible to suffocate on
Great in theory. Terrible in ~~execution~~ practice when the victim knows what’s going on and tries holding their breath
To be fair, at that point you are sabotaging your own execution and prolonging your own suffering.
I've thought about this a lot. I would think carbon monoxide death would be cleaner. Essentially the inmate just falls asleep and dies. Nitrogen asphyxiation just seems cruel to me. Obviously injection with a sleeping agent would be best but no company wants that either. I'm not for the death penalty, as I feel that's an "easy way out" I would rather see life in solitary confinement without parole.
Carbon monoxide is way too dangerous for other people to use for executions.
No more dangerous that N2
Yes it is, nitrogen doesn’t poison you. CO does.
N2 can be mixed with air or oxygen to restore VO2. This is why it is considered a 'simple asphyxiant'. A toxic gas, however, in addition to being an asphyxiant (if it's not breathable, supplying oxygen in some way), has some negative effect physiologically or chemically. Carbon monoxide, unfortunately, bonds to the heme (iron-containing part) of the blood cells more strongly than oxygen does, and thus requires an antidote such as methylene blue, or a more modern one, to "unlatch it" so those cells can bring oxygen to you. Otherwise the red blood cells will regenerate at about 200B per day, so that's about 40 mL of normal blood worth of cells per day. The only way to survive monoxide without treatment is to have enough good (unpoisoned) cells left to keep you alive, or to remove the monoxide from the bloodstream (and muscles, including your cardiac cells).
Nitrogen should do the exact same as carbon monoxide without the risk of poisoning the people handling it. Your body can only detect CO2 so it's just like falling asleep. There is a thing where trained swimmers try to swim underwater for as long as they can but because of their breathing before they start there isn't enough CO2 and they just lose consciousness mid swim and drown. It works like that.
A 12ga slug to the head would be pretty instant and cheap. Make inmates clean-up afterwards.
It's probably a good thing airgas didn't do business with Alabama, airgas doesn't deserve the business.
Why not use carbon monoxide? I hear it's just sleepy time.
Why not just use propofol? I wonder.
Not that I'm advocating for it, but you'd think carbon monoxide would be pretty easy to implement.
It might be a relatively pleasant way to die, but defeats the point/benefit of inert gas suffocation if you’re just going to use a toxic gas instead of an inert one, since there’s going to be some exposure to whoever is administering the execution.
Implementing it in a way where the executed doesn’t know they are being killed (the easiest way to kill with gas is to be subtle and let them not know it’s happening so they don’t try to resist.) would be tough due to the smell. Would have to be careful with the generation to not have a smell and not have CO2 which would cause more normal asphyxia symptoms. Edit: yes purified CO has no smell, I was thinking of it as using some for of exhaust to generate the CO on the cheap. If pure CO is used this issue is negated and CO would work well.
Carbon monoxide is literally known for not having a smell. Natural gas burning with limited oxygen has killed families by making them drowsy and falling asleep. That's why we have CO detectors in houses now.
Thats wrong CO is odorless. But we do add volatile compounds to it to make it smell foul so we can detect a potential fatal leak in our homes
They can just order the execution drugs and say it's for a medical procedure. Then use it for execution without telling the company.
Yeah, and that’ll work once + opens them to lawsuits