Oklahoma Approves new form of execution opening the door way to ask if anyway is humane
Oklahome was faced with a delema that many states who practice the death penalty face. Lethal injection was proving to be more cuel and unusual that initially thought with more botched executions then ever before. Drug companies have actually stopped sending the drugs used for leathal injection in light of recent botched executions.
Lethal injection was introduced as a human way to execute someone. At first being described and just being put to sleep. Typically three drugs are used once the IV is in the first is meant to sedate the inmate, the second a paralytic and the third a dose of potassium to cause the heart to stop.
Over the years problems with this method arose from not being able to find a vein to having the IV inserted wrong so that the sedative doesnt work completely and the inmate suffer the rath of the last to drugs. Also each person has a different metabolism concerning drugs while one person might need 2 mg of sedative another might need 5 mg.
Botched lethal injections have been described as seeing someone choking and fighting for breath. Witnesses scream cruel and unusual. And Oklahome beleives to have found the answer. By using nitrogen gas (a suggestion was to have an inmate wear a mask wear the gas is sent throug but that isnt confirmed as of yet) when nitrogen outweaighs oxygen in an area a person suffers from hypoxia and eventually dies.
Higher ups in Oklahome state that a person just gets dizzy and then slowly falls asleep. Im not going to lie nitrogen gas makes it so one literally chokes on air. Hypoxia is not as wonderful and some say. Yes some people may just fall asleep but other choke, feel extreme pain and even halucinate. Officials in Oklahoma are already covering the asses by stating that they are going of reports of accidents and that its not like they can test the gas method. So basically if this goes sideways there was no way to know right…
A natural death is rarely peaceful and most people suffer in the process of dying at some point. And the idea that we can find a way to quickly execute someone without any pain isnt realistic. The US has used gas before and it was stopped because of the way inmates choke and slowly die. Using nitrogen is literally depriving one of oxygen and even if it takes 5 minutes they wont be pleasent.
I know the crimes these people on death row have committed are horrific but ive never been able to fulling accept execution. Mainly because so many people believe they can conduct an execution humanely. Now if people were honest and said hey this isnt going to be like falling asleep it could actually be painful for up to an hour then maybe id feel better about it.
Our execution system is flawed in so many ways. Most people die natural deaths on death row waiting to die because of the extensive appeal system. And then we fool ourselves by saying we are being humane while killing someone. When someone spends an hour slowly dying from a botched lethal injection are we really any better then the murderers themselves.
I dont know the answer to this problem. But I refuse to lie to myself by saying these ways of execution arent cruel and unusual.
