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I don't support the death penalty, but your comment about a "must-cause-pain execution method" seems completely off-base based on everything I've read. If you'v

I don't support the death penalty, but your comment about a "must-cause-pain execution method" seems completely off-base based on everything I've read. If you've kept up with the news, the argument is actually that the procedure MUST NOT cause pain to the condemned, and that's actually very hard to do while still ensuring death. The prototypical "three drug protocol" starts with a deep sedative that is supposed to render the person insensate (feeling no pain), then a paralytic to stop them from convulsing (the paralytic alone would actually cause death by asphyxiation in most cases), followed by potassium chloride which induces cardiac arrest. If you wanted to kill someone painfully, you could just skip straight to the potassium chloride. It would burn like hell and they would have a massive heart attack while fully conscious. Can you provide backing for your statement?

knorby 11y ago
(Now that I'm off my phone...) my wording could have been better, but it is meant to be an anxiety provoking and harsh, similar to past methods, and there are some speculations on the drug. An overdose of anesthetic, sodium thiopental included. Many kinder methods would produce feelings of euphoria, and these methods are explicitly avoided. The second drug, the muscle relaxant, has been speculated to be more for the audience than the prisoner, and potassium chloride would be exceptionally painful if felt. The dosage of sodium thiopental has come under fire as being much too low, long before medication swaps and more blatant screw ups (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7269-execution-by-injection-far-from-painless/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7269-execution-by-inj...). I've read speculation that the anesthetics are really not a perfect block from the pain the body experiences, even if dosage is correct. Perhaps the method wasn't meant to cause pain, but the method makes few attempts to avoid it, particularly when considering similar alternatives. That it shouldn't cause the condemned to feel like their body is on fire for several minutes seems like a far cry from "must not cause pain."

knorby 11y ago

(Now that I'm off my phone...) my wording could have been better, but it is meant to be an anxiety provoking and harsh, similar to past methods, and there are some speculations on the drug. An overdose of anesthetic, sodium thiopental included. Many kinder methods would produce feelings of euphoria, and these methods are explicitly avoided. The second drug, the muscle relaxant, has been speculated to be more for the audience than the prisoner, and potassium chloride would be exceptionally painful if felt. The dosage of sodium thiopental has come under fire as being much too low, long before medication swaps and more blatant screw ups (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7269-execution-by-injection-far-from-painless/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7269-execution-by-inj...). I've read speculation that the anesthetics are really not a perfect block from the pain the body experiences, even if dosage is correct. Perhaps the method wasn't meant to cause pain, but the method makes few attempts to avoid it, particularly when considering similar alternatives. That it shouldn't cause the condemned to feel like their body is on fire for several minutes seems like a far cry from "must not cause pain."