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Why are inert gasses not used in US executions?
With all the uncertainty, trouble and hassle they ve been having with standard lethal injections, why don t they simply opt for something like nitrogen? If my understanding is correct, when inhaled in high concentration, nitrogen sneakily replaces the body s oxygen without the subject feeling any pain before a rapid loss of consciousness occurs. On paper, to me this seems like it would solve all their issues. Also, it s cheap and readily available. Why are they not doing this? It would be like someone who accidentally inhales too much helium, getting blue lips and faints, but not feeling any pain. With continuous suply, death should occur in some minutes.
2 Answers
- StellaLv 74 years ago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/17/oklahoma-...
Oklahoma actually has that on their books but hasn't used it yet.
One obstacle here is that nobody wants to test this.
Doctors and nurses are actively discouraged from participating in executions, even if they personally have no objection to capital punishment. Drug companies run into problems if they sell drugs for this purpose.
I can't imagine that anyone qualified to design and test this system is going to be eager to do so.
Realistically, it would have to be tested on innocent animals.
That would be a hard sell to the public.
(I suppose that they could test it on dogs condemned because they bit someone.)
Anyway, there are reasons why execution methods tend to be traditional procedures that were developed some time ago when feelings about this were different.
