If putting animals to sleep is painless, why is the lethal injection in humans painful?

I’ve wondered that exact same thing. Maybe it has to do with the amount of drugs needed? I did read that some of the drugs used in the best cocktail for lethal injection are less available now.

GQ.

Why would an overdose of anesthesia cause pain? And if the anesthesia didn’t work, it would be easy enough to tell and do something different.

Makes me believe that the anti-death penalty people are making hay with the unknown/unprovable. If you have a fervent belief, you should try everything at your disposal to muddy the waters.

Many of the complaints about the drugs being administered in death penalty cases centers around the prisoners collapsed veins, due to their frequent drug use.
Mistakes like the other day in Oklahoma should be avoided, for sure, but I am not sure why we have to try and be as civilized in being pain-free as we are. I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with them suffering for the 5 or 10 seconds being thrown into a wood chipper, say, would take.

I wondered about that too! Sadly I was present when a dog had to be put down. :-( While holding him the injection was over in seconds and the dog was relaxed and gone a few seconds later.
With all the press about the latest super heroin that instantly kills users and is for sale at bargain prices of $10 a hit, it seems we could avoid a lot of cost by using that and a mix of KCl as the drug of choice.

Because humans are savages and they want it to be agonising.as seen here

? @ibstubro
? “the anti-death penalty people are making hay with the unknown/unprovable”

You are implying what exactly? That there is a conspiracy by anti-death penalty people to make the death penalty look cruel by making up stories?

That is pretty much the most ridiculous thing I have read in a long time. Most of the people I know that are against the death penalty are against it anyway. They don’t object to the methodology as much as to the barbaric penalty itself.

It are the pro-death penalty people that seem most concerned about the ‘humane culling’ of people.

Who says it is painful? I understood that the prisoner is under anesthetic before the lethal drug is given.

@Stinley Read the story about the man in Oklahoma who took 45 minutes to die in the last few days. Apparently, it was pretty awful. And this was reported by the officials – not by anti-death penalty people.

I’m on the fence about the death penalty, @whitenoise. However, were I ardently opposed, I wouldn’t have a problem using the argument that lethal injection is painful. Administered properly, it is not provable whether LI is painful or not, as the recipient is dead.

What is ridiculous about that?

I’ve read the story now. The story being that the drugs he was given were a) new drugs b) not given effectively because his vein burst. They can’t use the usual drugs because some of the drug companies have withdrawn their licence for use in the death penalty. That may be part of the issue (the new drugs caused the problem with the vein?) but the main one is that the man’s vein burst. This is a one off and could happen to an animal too. What’s the question here?
I am against the death penalty in principle but just not getting the subtext of the question…

@Stinley There have been a number of other cases in which it was obvious that the death was painful. Our Constitution has a prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” so part of the discussion is about whether it is inflicting a cruel punishment.

What is used in euthanasia for our pets? I looked on line and found this:

“For large animals, the volumes of barbiturates required are considered by some to be impractical, although this is standard practice in the United States.[5] For horses and cattle, other drugs may be available. Some specially formulated combination products are available, such as Somulose (Secobarbital/Cinchocaine) and Tributame (Embutramide/Chloroquine/Lidocaine), which cause deep unconsciousness and cardiac arrest independently with a lower volume of injection, thus making the process faster, safer, and more effective.”

So, this would explain why we use a cocktail of drugs instead of straight pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.

It also notes that:
“Occasionally, a horse injected with these mixtures may display apparent seizure activity before death. This may be due to premature cardiac arrest. However, if normal precautions (e.g., sedation with detomidine) are taken, this is rarely a problem.[6] Anecdotal reports that long term use of phenylbutazone increase the risk of this reaction are unverified.”

Which would help explain why we sedate before execution. We don’t want to see them uncomfortable as they die, it makes us uncomfortable too.

Is that what the drug companies are trying to achieve? By forcing the use of drugs with unknown or more frequent side effects, the whole execution process becomes ‘cruel and unusual’ and therefore unlawful?

@Stinley No – I don’t think the drug companies in the US have an agenda. Some foreign ones are not supplying the drugs they have because they are opposed to capital punishment.

@rojo Dogs are administered a sedative too before the drug that stops their heart.

@janbb I think that depends on the vet and/or the size of the dog. My Skye got a single shot, there may have been a sedative in it, I don’t know.

What I hear when they discuss this on the news is the “cocktail” of medications they use now. Not sure if the cocktail is cheaper (we are talking about the government, after all) or supposedly more effective (as we know now, they’re less effective). When you bring an animal to the vet, it’s probably not a cocktail of meds, it’s just one type, overdosed.

Aside from being in total agreement with @whitenoise (I think) in opposition to the death penalty at all times and for all crimes, I’m also mystified by questions about its execution (pun intended).

One of the least objectionable ways to die is CO2 asphyxiation. The victim simply falls asleep and then fails to awaken. CO2 kill boxes are still used for animal euthanasia, as far as I know. The administration is cheap, fairly quick, and clean. There is simply no suffering, outside of the knowledge (at least in humans) that death is imminent and unpreventable. And as for ability to administer, if the victim can breathe, then he (or she) can be executed without extraordinary means to make certain.

Lethal injection seems to usually contain three drugs: 1) a drug to cause unconsciousness, 2) a drug to cause paralysis, and 3) a drug to actually kill by stopping the heart (potassium chloride a.k.a. salt substitute). So why is the second drug necessary if they’re already unconscious and strapped in? I’ve read that it’s the second drug that usually causes the problems since it can sometimes undo the effects of the first drug.

Meh. We should just go back to the days of slicing people’s heads off with huge swords a la Game of Thrones—what happened to that?

@CWOTUS I think you mean CO. CO2 asphyxiation is pretty awful.

@filmfann I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with them suffering for the 5 or 10 seconds being thrown into a wood chipper, say, would take.

Heh you’re a scary guy.

^ That, from an expert.

:)

One of the reasons I escape into violent horror movies is because real life fucking sucks.

Lol I kid, I kid.

Because when your dog is put down it’s carried out by a trained, knowledgeable medical professional. When someone is executed by the state it often is not carried out by a trained, knowledgeable medical professional.

How do we know it’s painless to the animals?

@Adirondackwannabe I’ve only participated in one once and it was clear that Prince had been successfully sedated and was not in pain. The transition from alive to dead was seamless.

Yes, but if you stop anything’s heart the brain still functions for a bit.

@Adirondackwannabe: I have adopted a number of older animals and have been there for 7 euthanizations, 2 cats and 5 dogs. All but one went very quietly, the 1 was panicked by being at the vet, so fought the process a bit. Animals react in very specific ways when they experience pain, none of my animals were in pain.

Okay, I’ll take both of your words on that. Yeah, I’ve been around animals all my life and have seen them in pain.

@thorninmud where did you get the idea that CO2 asphyxiation is “pretty awful”?

I did mean what I said about CO2 gassing, but perhaps nitrogen would have been a better choice, anyway.

@CWOTUS CO2 asphyxiation triggers an “oxygen starvation” reaction, the body’s desperate attempt to get oxygen. That’s awful. With CO, the body thinks it’s getting oxygen, since CO binds to the red blood cells just like Oxygen does. There’s no starvation reaction, no struggle.

I hadn’t seen any of that (and still don’t) in the Wikipedia article. If you’ve got a better source, then I’m all ears (and eyes, I suppose).

Here.

This paper looks specifically at the pain and stress induced by CO2 in humans: “However, CO2 caused hyperventilation, severe acidosis, a significant rise in arterial pressure, and was associated with an overall substantial degree of stress.”

Rachel Maddow did a show on this last night, providing a lot of history of the drugs used and context for the discussion going on now. She addresses the “collapsed veins” thing, and frankly it sounds like CYA to me.

One of the biggest problems with finding drugs that will kill prisoners either (1) painlessly, or (2) while so paralyzed that people watching can’t tell they’re in pain is that the suppliers for these drugs were traditionally European companies, who are now prohibited by their governments from selling them to Americans – because it’s appalling that these drugs end up being used to murder humans.

American sources approached for drug supply are worried about this becoming public knowledge, and their reputation and/or business being negatively affected.

For those saying asphyxiation should not be painful, be aware that the universities I’ve worked with do not allow small mammals to be euthanized this way because it is considered to be cruelty.

I’m not confident that a quiet prisoner or animal is necessarily a prisoner or animal that is not in pain. Paralysis is often a component of these lethal drugs. That keeps us from knowing how they would react if they could move or express themselves. There are enough horror stories of people who have gone into surgery unproperly anaesthetized, and could feel the operation happening, even though no one knew it. Why do we assume the same is not happening with some lethal injections, particularly, as in the case of Oklahoma, if those administering the drug will not say what it is or where they got it. The whole thing is simply horrifying.

Now, honestly, why do we care if the split-second before death incurs pain or not? Dead is dead.

@ibstubro

It’s more to make us feel better about the state-sanctioned murder on our behalf.

“We’re not barbaric, we execute humanely.”

The powers that be are making it too complicated and theatrical to ‘show it’s humane’. I have been ruminating on a pneumatic plunger that dislocates the Axis vertebrae which would cause instantaneous death and no measurable pain. It is similar to the way we put livestock down for consumption. It would be clean, fast, and foolproof. And all the pageantry that seems to be craved for an execution.

Now, honestly, why do we care if the split-second before death incurs pain or not? Dead is dead.

The victims should get as much!!

Because it’s more to make us feel better about it.

Thank you for the discussion, everyone!