Capitol punishment
This morning on one of the local talk shows they were arguing about capitol punishment. There were many pros and cons on the morale correctness and effectiveness as a deterrent of the state killing people. The efficiency of gas chambers V firing squads V hanging V ‘lethal’ inject. In all of that, they were ruminating about the ‘botched’ executions over the last several months / year of some of the lethal injections and how hard it was to get the drugs used in the process.
I’ll address the most likely reason that some of those executions were ‘botched’. The prisoner died after awhile….. How is that botched?
It took longer than expected for the prisoner to die. Was it more unpleasant to watch? Most likely, yes.
Why did it take longer for the prisoner to die? The most likely reason is that whoever was administering the lethal cocktail did not give the prisoner enough of the medications to get it over with faster. They most likely followed the book on doses with nobody considering that sometimes it simply takes more to achieve the desired effect – in this case death.
What is the process for lethal inject? First – WASH your hands. You don’t want the condemned to get an infection. Assemble the needed supplies and explain to the patient that it won’t hurt and that you have done this procedure many times. [Ok, so that was a bit of medical humor].
After the prisoner is strapped to the table an IV line is established. IVs can go in the hand or arm which is common or they can be inserted into the neck, feet or legs, all work well to deliver the payload of medications.
The first medication administered relaxes or sedates the person – er I mean the subject, we don’t want to get too personal on this. Common drugs used for this would include barbital, amatol, and valium or versed. Pick whichever one you would like as they all work well for this.
The next drug paralyzes the ‘subject’ so that they don’t show outward signs of the death process. Sucanectine or the older curare works well for this step.
The final ‘drug’ to be administered is KCL aka potassium chloride, this stops the heart and is what actually kills the subject. This ingredient is commonly known as salt substitute and is found next to table salt in the food section of the store.
How hard is it to get this stuff? Not very hard at all.
All of the supplies and medications are readily available in your local hospital.
So what gives?!? Why are the states having such a hard time getting the stuff? It all boils down to marketing / branding and Public Relations. Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies spend a ton of money convincing the public that they are making and delivering a product to ‘make them better”. If it gets out that the same things we use in healthcare to make you better can also be used to kill you, then people will trust the medical industry even less than they already do.
All things considered, IF the state is going to make use of capitol punishment, it is hard to beat a firing squad.