sekio
Bluelight Crew
Yeah, I know. Most US gas chambers use cyanide. Probably because it's been so well demonstrated to be lethal. It does result in some rather dramatic choking-to-death stuff as it effectively makes it so you can breathe but your blood no longer carries oxygen at the same time as acting as an acidic gas that irritates your eyes, nose and throat. Even taking a cyanide capsule orally will produce a 'dramatic' death.
Nitrogen asphyxia is much preferable, safer for bystanders and also cheaper - people exposed to pure N2 atmospheres act as if they otherwise didn't notice anything until they rapidly lose consciousness and eventually die. While you breathe it your body still removes CO2 so you'd not notice you were choking or otherwise not breathing air. Air is, after all, 78% nitrogen.
Obviously though, humanity to the executed is not really a driving factor in US capital punishment from what I see...
Nowadays there's been a switch to just thiopental for that reason. There's been cases argued that the paralytic and KCl are both inhumane due to evidence that e.g. poorly stored or improperly administered barbiturates result in the person being fully awake and aware but paralysed and unable to act or communicate as they get to feel their veins burn and their heart stop. I guess straight barbiturate OD is an incremental improvement.
I think a more pressing problem is that nobody wants to sell barbiturates or any other drugs to the US if they know or suspect they're going to be used for the express purpose of murdering someone, effectively. And no US commercial source produces strong barbiturates any more because of the lovely DEA. So I've heard that some states have tried using midazolam plus hydromorphone in huge doses as a lethal agent instead. Now that's something I'm sure most of BL can get behind.
Nitrogen asphyxia is much preferable, safer for bystanders and also cheaper - people exposed to pure N2 atmospheres act as if they otherwise didn't notice anything until they rapidly lose consciousness and eventually die. While you breathe it your body still removes CO2 so you'd not notice you were choking or otherwise not breathing air. Air is, after all, 78% nitrogen.
Obviously though, humanity to the executed is not really a driving factor in US capital punishment from what I see...
Yeah I always wondered how they arrived at that particular combination of drugs when the barbiturate alone is going to be 100% effective at a high enough dose.
Nowadays there's been a switch to just thiopental for that reason. There's been cases argued that the paralytic and KCl are both inhumane due to evidence that e.g. poorly stored or improperly administered barbiturates result in the person being fully awake and aware but paralysed and unable to act or communicate as they get to feel their veins burn and their heart stop. I guess straight barbiturate OD is an incremental improvement.
I think a more pressing problem is that nobody wants to sell barbiturates or any other drugs to the US if they know or suspect they're going to be used for the express purpose of murdering someone, effectively. And no US commercial source produces strong barbiturates any more because of the lovely DEA. So I've heard that some states have tried using midazolam plus hydromorphone in huge doses as a lethal agent instead. Now that's something I'm sure most of BL can get behind.
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