Why not execute via heroin OD ?

Or morphine, if that sounds more "medical". I'm not a death penalty supporter, but if you are going to kill people, why not make it painless and even perhaps enjoyable. The 3-drug cocktail they use now seems quite likely to cause terrible suffering. Is that the idea ? Would society be more likely to use a painless form of murder ?

Thiopental is supposed to be the first drug administered. It produces profound unconsciousness in 5-60 seconds, and the amounts specified by various states are enough, on their own, to kill even a large man.

Incidentally, Morphine and other opiates can, and do, act like hallucinogens in a significant proportion of the people so medicated. Opiate trips are not necessarily pleasant, especially if the recipient is terrified of dying and desperately fighting to remain alive.

Pancuronium -- a synthetic curare -- is given next to paralyze the breathing. A large infusion of potassium chloride follows, to stop the heart.

If the thiopental is administered correctly, the victim/convict has no experience of his or her death.

I oppose the death penalty.

--bkl

Knowing how many hidden agendas are present when we kill someone, I would hardly be surprised if this complicated machinery - which can never be tested - rarely works the way it's supposed to. I have heard reasonable suggestions that muscle paralysis comes first, then potassium chloride, causing terrible burning in every blood vessel, and finally loss of consciousness and death.

Isn't simplicity the better plan ?

Good in theory, except that many people are very resistant to opiates (aside from hallucinating), and even some people are resistant to barbiturates like thiopental.

The machinery can be tested, by the way -- just not on a living subject.

Unfortunately, if the execution is being administered by sadists, they will find some way to make it as horrible as possible. They may comfort themselves that they are only punishing a bad person in spite of the "libbrul laws" that "coddle" that person, but never think about the innocent people that may be executed.

I don't oppose the death penalty out of regard for the guilty. I oppose it because it's so fallible; AND because it is a perversion of law.

--bkl

I'm on the fence with the death penalty, but I really couldn't care less if some monster like Charles Manson's last few moments on earth are "enjoyable".

if we must make this choice. Or don't you agree ?

To administer it fairly, consistently, and be absolutely certain they are executing the right person. To me even the slightest possibility that an innocent person might be executed outweighs any of the supposed benefits of capital punishment.

That said, I believe if we ever gain the wisdom to address those issues anyone who is executed should be terminated in a manner similar to the way his or her victims were killed. If they suffered, so should the person being executed. If we're going to have a Hammurabic system let's do it all the way.

50 tabs of the brown acid and then like, an hour later, send in half-a-dozen guys in rubber Reagan masks to spray silly string on him until his heart stops.

Humane? Probably not. Humorous? Oh yes.