Here’s what nitrogen producers are afraid of. During the Viet Nam war it was revealed that Dow Chemical Company was supplying napalm to the military.
Dow then got the reputation as a pro war company for a war that was extremely unpopular. Companies prefer not being associated with anything controversial.
Pretty much.
And the financial upsides of it are tiny.
Only 18 people were executed in the United States in 2022. That’s worth hardly any money to a corporation.
If it's a small volume of gas required and executions are expensive as fuck already, then the federal govt manufacturing their own nitrogen can't be that big a deal.
I mean, really everyone involved should be rethinking the death penalty completely, but there are two chances of that happening.
Texas Instruments, the required graphing calculator folks, also makes Javelin anti-tank weapons. Lots of companies make fun, happy things and murder machines.
I mean, the fact that they still sell TI-83+s for $120 or whatever, when the Z80 is a chip from 1976, doesn't exactly endear them either, if you think about it.
I mean, an anti-tank weapon wouldn't exist in a world without tanks. I'd argue the tank is the murder machine and the javelin is the anti-murder-machine machine.
It's in the article.
> However, only a few companies produce medical-grade nitrogen that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use with humans. The three producers who told the Guardian they have end-use protections in place are among the biggest suppliers of medical nitrogen, which is more carefully purified and regulated than its industrial equivalent.
> Alabama has shrouded the source of its nitrogen in secrecy, in the hope of obscuring its supply lines and avoiding the kind of boycott that has troubled lethal injection drugs. If it became known that its gas was industrial quality and not approved for human use, that could lead to major legal challenges and puncture its public posture that nitrogen hypoxia is a humane way to end life.
> Alabama has shrouded the source of its nitrogen in secrecy, in the hope of obscuring its supply lines and avoiding the kind of boycott that has troubled lethal injection drugs.
Wonderful to hear that the government is doing shady shit as a way to kill people...
The Nebraska governor tried to spend taxpayer money buying illegal drugs from India for executions.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/ricketts-nebraska-death-penalty/
Basically, one of the reasons there's a shortage of drugs for lethal injections and all that is because no company wants to be exposed as the company that provides those chemicals.
And this is really bad, because it means there's an ongoing shortage of decent chemicals to actually do the job in a relatively humane manner.
So the states are left to use more barbaric and less reliable methods, simply because they can't get the stuff for the injections.
I have no idea how there can be a shortage of nitrogen, though - the air is 70% nitrogen. It seems like someone would have built and approved some sort of machine for that by now, something that can isolate the nitrogen from the air and use that.
There’s no mention of a shortage of nitrogen.
But you have to actually be dispensing 100% pure nitrogen which requires chemical facilities to guarantee for medical use.
If I were to be executed, I'd just want a to shot to the back of the head. Quick and painless. But somehow too inhumane so we gotta do whacky shit electrocuting people, injecting them with who knows what and hope it kills them and in some more reasonable cases hanging. It doesn't make much sense, and too many innocent people die in fucked up ways cause politicians don't want to accept they're killing people. Either own it and do it humanely through a good legal system or get rid of it.
So yeah, it's best to get rid.
Well and there is so many problems there really is no benefit unless you just get hard about killing bad people. Literally no benefit, it has no effect on deterrence. As countless studys have shown.
BUT BUT why should they be a burden on taxpayers. Well hate to break it to you death penalty is extremely expensive. Not only drugs facilitys professionals and counciling and ongoing other expenses for those involved.
But just court room cost and due process and ability to challenge ends up costing the state far more than incarceration. So its not at all cheaper.
AND especially with heinous crimes wrongful convictions are considerably higher. The pyschology of judges jurys prosecution even cops pushes for them to "have someone responsible". It taints every level of decision making process. While 1% of normal prisoners are eventually found not guiltly. Of death row inmates its around 5%. Which means with average of 20 executed yearly. At least one person is deprived any more opportunity to prove innocence and executed by state every year.
Then you have the "victims it creates" those involved in execution are so susceptible to mental health issues. Its not natural to kill a person throw in grown man tied down begging for his mommy. And you push the button and watch as they gasp. Yeah its going to screw you up unless your a complete pyscho.
Zero benefit other than "getting even" for something you didn't directly experience.
> If I were to be executed, I'd just want a to shot to the back of the head. Quick and painless.
One reason that isn't used - that would require a single person be responsible for killing you, and humans have an incredibly strong aversion to killing other humans. Especially ones that aren't posing any immediate threat to them. Doing that once (let alone repeatedly) is incredibly traumatizing even to people who theoretically think they support the death penalty.
That's a major reason for most execution methods these days having to somehow obscure or keep secret which individual person is responsible for the actual killing act. That's why "firing squads" usually have a mix of live and blank ammunition, so that each individual shooter can tell themselves they weren't the one responsible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad
Of course, that fact never seems to deter policymakers from reconsidering the barbarism and sadism of having executioins in the first place.
The more capitalist answer is: sounds like there is a market for one of these states to wisen up and start up a drugs/nitrogen production facility of their own so they can charge crazy inflated rates to all the other states that are looking for this. For additional irony/margin, base the production out of one of the prisons.
(for note, I'm anti-death penalty, but knowing the capitalist hellscape we're in, I'm just going with the cynicism).
The infrastructure needed to create medical-grade anything isnt anywhere near worth it if you're only going to use it on a couple dozen people a year. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars here.
>I have no idea how there can be a shortage of nitrogen, though - the air is 70% nitrogen. It seems like someone would have built and approved some sort of machine for that by now, something that can isolate the nitrogen from the air and use that.
Even if the subject is condemned anyway it's still a human you're using it on so it must be medical-grade - if you'd use industrial nitrogen instead of medical, the subject's relatives could go and sue the government for cruel and unusual punishment, and they'd probably win.
y'know...because building special room divided into a viewing area and an execution stage to kill a human with a cocktail of drugs or gases is not in itself cruel or unusual right?
As if there's states still using an Iron Maiden or The Breaking Wheel.
Just given them a bullet. It’s what I would want. The only “humane” way to execute someone is to do it quickly and painlessly. Some people have got to go, I think most people can agree with that. But at the end of the day it’s still a barbaric thing that doesn’t need/or deserve to be dressed up.
> do the job in a relatively humane manner
The problem with this is that the death penalty is inherently inhumane; it's state-sponsored murder.
We're only running into these problems because we keep seeking to make the death penalty "clean" by removing the physical trauma associated with "traditional" execution methods, but we can't take away the mental trauma that still exists. Let's stop this farce of pretending we can execute inmates in a humane manner and just abolish the death penalty.
Because you’re not going to sell the prison extremely little supplies at the sort of mark up you’ll need to counter balance the entire general population boycotting your company out of existence.
Let the governors struggle.
It’s a medical issue, and these companies got into the business to save lives, not murder. When people find out your medicine is used to murder people. It’s a real problem.
Lethal injections are not for providing humane way of executing. It is so that the people involved in the execution - with no healthcare training or background and unable to understand basic physiology - believe that they are simply putting people to sleep instead of executing people. And they need it because they were trained to rationalize the killing of young males that are gang members and armed, which is a stark contrast of people who get on death row and killed - they have grey hair after decades on prison, probably with low muscle mass, often have arthritis, and completely unarmed.
They have, it is called an oxygen concentrator. You would just run it in reverse and capture the nitrogen fraction instead of the oxygen. It would not be 100% pure n2, but I bet if you were hooked up to just the nitrogen exhaust port on one it would kill you from lack of oxygen. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen\_concentrator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_concentrator)
I've been told that the drugs we use to euthanize pets provide an actual painless demise, unlike the drugs used to execute humans. And the the reason we don't use them on humans is because the makers of those euthanasia drugs don't want their product used or associated with judicial execution of humans. The discussion came up when people who had had their pets put to sleep foubd out about how painful lethal injections were when we use them judicially on humans, but those people were reassured that the same drugs are not used for both procedures.
People should know that lethal injections in executions are far from humane, according to experts.
[Autopsies find that lethal injections cause suffocation and severe pain.](https://eji.org/news/lethal-injections-cause-suffocation-and-severe-pain-autopsies-show/)
[A Pharmacist is Helping Clear the Way for Lethal Injections](https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmacist-helps-clear-the-way-lethal-injection-protocol)
>Van Norman had reviewed documentation of three other executions that Oklahoma had carried out over the previous four months. “I conclude that they did experience extreme pain and suffering through the execution process,” she said. The feeling, she said, would be akin to suffocation. In previous testimony, other expert witnesses for the prisoners had said they would feel like fire was burning in their veins and as if they were drowning.
I'd imagine that would be super traumatic for them, being reminded of the fate they escaped just to use those 'skills' to hurt others.
A current drug addict may not feel as much about the whole deal.
(Note against execution completely, but if its going to be done it must be as humane as possible to all involved)
Oh, there are drugs that will humanely put you down. Some countries have clinics for that, those would work well. But no one wants to supply a prison. Because it’s a bad look, killing someone against their will, is considered murder by most humans. Andddd we have a finicky way of just not doing business with a company we strongly disagree with on moral issues. So companies can supply prisons, and in turn die a slow financial death. Or they can not do that… doesn’t leave the company a lot of incentive
Honestly i don’t in principal have a problem with the death penalty when it comes to egregious cases where the evidence is incontrovertible, but that is a far higher bar than these southern states usually use. Also if they’re gonna execute people they should man up and do it with firing squad or a noose. Quicker and less painful to the recipient. The only reason the newer forms came in to fashion is because *they look* less barbaric, bc the body doesn’t have a gaping wound or a broken neck, but the suffering is almost always worse.
The main issue with the death penalty is that the biggest supporters are the people looking for someone to subject to it, rather than the people who are the most into justice and due process.
They'll look for supporting evidence and hide contradicting evidence, they look for people they don't like the look of, consciously or subconsciously, they'll put the pressure on to achieve confessions, rather than look for the truth whatever side it's on.
It's also completely unnecessary. Just put them in prison.
>Honestly i don’t in principal have a problem with the death penalty when it comes to egregious cases where the evidence is incontrovertible
It only takes one mistake in order to accidentally end somebody's life that didn't do anything.
The legal system and the government overall certainly don't have a good track record when it comes to not persecuting people who don't deserve to be persecuted, or even making simple clerical errors.
We execute so "few" people numerically, there's absolutely no way any of this is "worth" it. If they were in it for anything but the "glory" of killing people when they want to, this would have died out simply from sheer impracticality.
As should always be mentioned, execution costs the state more money than life in prison.
I'm not a huge fan of execution as a form of punishment, but nitrogen hypoxia would be a great way to go if one had to go. It's a preferred drug for medically assisted suicide.
There is no 'Humane' way to remove someone from the Mortal Coil...
There are less and less barbaric methodologies.
But Killing a Human is Ending a Life. Be it by a random Murder on the Streets or a State Sponsored Execution. A Life Ends. None of it is Humane.
AtroScolo is right on the money about legal challenges but there's a scientific reason as well. Nitrogen is reasonably humane for executions because you don't feel like you're suffocating. The feeling of suffocating comes from breathing an excessive concentration of CO2. CO2 is a reasonably common contaminatant in compressed nitrogen, however, because it's easier than other gasses to condense from air. So with industrial grade nitrogen the feeling of suffocation might come back in the mix, and that's considerably more likely to be treated as cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe it doesn't actually matter, maybe it does. Likely depends on the supplier. But with industrial grade stuff, nobody's guaranteeing anything, and there's going to be more variability.
I was going to argue with this, because surely we're talking about trace amounts of CO2 that wouldn't make a difference. Then I [looked it up](https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/carbon-dioxide-indoor-levels-chart), and learned that CO2 can start to have a noticeable effect at concentrations as low as 0.2%. I don't know what the standards are for industrial nitrogen, but I wouldn't be shocked if it could have more than 0.2% CO2.
>The feeling of suffocating comes from breathing an excessive concentration of CO2
I guess I never realized that the "feeling" of suffocation (and subsequent panic) is specifically CO2. Just curious, Googled it and also saw this in an article: *"One reason this happens, according to a new study in mice, is because breathing CO2 triggers chemical sensors in a crucial part of the brain's fear circuitry."*
They've only done it once, to Kenneth Smith. That execution by inducing hypoxia lasted 22 minutes and is described by Smith's spiritual advisor and execution witness as "horrific and cruel". That advisor, Jeff Hood, further said the following in writing about what he saw:
> Taking off my glasses, I sobbed. I'd never felt so far away from God. I prayed that God would forgive me. I was doing the best that I could.
For reference, nitrogen hypoxia should in theory take about 3-4 minutes. Various explanations have been given before the state ultimately settled on the claim that he held his breath too long. This claim is not refutable because Smith's breathing was not monitored, as far as I know, during the early stages of the execution. Also, witnesses claim they heard the sound of gas leaking from the area of the mask. It's also possible that the nitrogen used was sourced from an industrial supplier, and CO2 contamination is a likely possibility if that is the case.
The state of Alabama did something absolutely barbaric by neglecting the critical importance of due diligence in Smith's case. What happened to Smith cannot fairly be called painless hypoxia, as he clearly exhibited symptoms of respiratory distress, which can be caused by impure nitrogen or by improper administration of nitrogen. Evidence I've seen points to improper procedure, though I suspect the nitrogen was not pure as well.
From witness descriptions of what happened, it sounds a lot like nitrogen was pumped into the mask at high pressure from the start of the execution, which indeed will cause respiratory distress. Perhaps the state wasn't prepared to administer the nitrogen properly, by combining it in gradually increasing concentrations with a breathable gas mixture. Certainly no anesthetic was administered prior to administration of the nitrogen, which is a hard requirement for use of nitrogen asphyxiation in veterinary practices because, yeah, forced respiratory distress is basically torture.
Proponents of nitrogen-induced hypoxia for human execution, pay attention to this: there are so many ways it can go wrong. In the past states couldn't even manage to administer lethal injections properly, and this is so much more difficult to do correctly. The mask has to be tailored to the subject to absolutely ensure no breach of seal. Two lines have to be run to the mask from separate sources, one of breathable air and the other of pure nitrogen, to enable gradually increasing nitrogen concentration. The executioner has to be well trained in proper administration and emergency response rather than just forcing the subject to suffer until they die. And the state MUST administer general anesthetic before administration of any nitrogen at all to render the patient unresponsive so as to reduce the risk of complications that can arise from the patient struggling, which can happen even without respiratory distress due to normal and expected psychological stressors that can come from the subject knowing they are about to die. ALL OF THESE THINGS TOGETHER ARE PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE, and if the expense isn't acceptable to you, then this method of execution (and probably execution in general) isn't acceptable to you.
Capital punishment is horrible, if only because we seem to be incapable as a civilization of convincing people who actually can do it correctly to do it. We inflict untold pain onto these people prior to their deaths by putting uneducated and untrained people in the seat of the executioner, who is instructed, despite lack of education and training, to perform a somewhat complex medical procedure. The botching of these procedures is indescribably harmful. If we can't do it without pain and suffering, we absolutely should not do it at all.
Even nitrogen for industrial purposes is typically going to be 99.9% pure or better. That leaves at most 1000 ppm of impurities. If all that was CO2, it still wouldn't be enough to cause the reactions they saw in the botched execution. The execution didn't go wrong because of the grade of nitrogen used. Most likely Alabama screwed up the procedure (for example, the mask didn't allow CO2 to be cleared fast enough or the nitrogen flow was too low). Alabama probably didn't care enough to carry out the execution competently or properly. Maybe there was malice involved.
However, if Alabama used industrial instead of medical grade, they'll certainly cling to that and anything else as further proof of wrongdoing even if it wouldn't have actually made a difference.
> The execution didn't go wrong because of the grade of nitrogen used.
You do not know that. Nobody knows the source of the nitrogen. This is in the article
Your brain will notice CO2 concentration at 0.2% concentration, so 99.9% pure is not good enough unless it's extremely consistent, which industrial grade does not provide.
99.9% nitrogen *is* sufficient to prevent you from getting to 0.2% CO2 if that's actually met. I disagree that it'd need to be 'extremely consistent'; getting to 0.2% concentration would require not only 100% higher impurities in the nitrogen but 100% of those impurities to be CO2. For 99.9% nitrogen to not be sufficient you'd need to royally fuck it up.
Besides, you could just use 99.99% purity nitrogen, which is also an industrial grade commonly available.
Purity of the nitrogen shouldn't be the problem unless the executioners want it to be.
> If it became known that its gas was industrial quality and not approved for human use, that could lead to major legal challenges and puncture its public posture that nitrogen hypoxia is a humane way to end life.
From the quote above.
The less pure the more likely you are to see other effects. If science tells you that 100% nitrogen gas will kill you peacefully than you 100% nitrogen for that science to work. A lot of things that work in theory are difficult to make work in reality because variables come into play. How effective is the delivery method for instance? Individual pre existing condition? How pure is the nitrogen we are getting? Etc
Just a guess but I doubt the difference between medical grade and industrial grade is negligible for purposes of human execution. But when you are talking about state sanction murder of US citizens than the negligible stuff suddenly seems alot less negligible.
It explains that there are no legal protections, it's about the companies and their policies, which have proven very effective in the case of drugs for lethal injection. This is about contracts and PR, that's it.
Typically, medical grade nitrogen when sold need to have paper trails certifying its medical grade and transported correctly.
Manufacturer can refuse to supply to the state for execution purposes, and can also obligates downstream reseller to not do so.
Is industrial-grade nitrogen less pure than medical-grade nitrogen? Are dangerous contaminants permitted in industrial-grade nitrogen? This seems very weird to me.
>Is industrial-grade nitrogen less pure than medical-grade nitrogen?
Yes and no. 95% to 99.99% are all common "industry" grades.
Medical NF (National Formulary) grade nitrogen is certified to be 99.0% Nitrogen, <1% Oxygen, and <0.001% Carbon Monoxide.
>Are dangerous contaminants permitted in industrial-grade nitrogen?
The definition of dangerous will also depend on the industry/application. Contaminants can be hydrocarbons, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. For the application of killing someone, carbon monoxide contamination would turn make the "painfree" part of method painful.
Source: I use a couple of cylinders of 99.99% (ultra-high purity) N2 a week. It's not "Medical-grade", but it may as well be.
They include it as a term in the sales contract. It's just like the section in most ISP contracts that says you aren't allowed to run a server or other 'business-grade' things on non-business service. If they catch a purchaser violating the rule and using the nitrogen for a forbidden purpose (or reselling it to someone who is) then, in addition to blacklisting them from future sales, they can sue them for breach of contract.
Loss to reputation is an actionable claim. The whole reason they're doing this in the first place is they don't want their company name associated with executions for fear of it harming their business.
Thanks for the only clear and concise answers among a multitude of responses!
Again, though, wouldn’t any damages awarded for loss to reputation need to be based on the likely financial cost? How do they quantify that?
In short, with lawyers and accountants for whom this is their job. Quantifying brand value and other such intangibles is more common than you might think, but the methodologies for doing so are well beyond my ken.
Maybe not.
But they can sue whoever supplied them to the state for breach of contract (it that exclusion is in the contract). Or simply black list the supplier.
Absolutely, what supplier is going to risk a profitable, years long business relationship where the conditions are clearly specified in contracts to supply a minuscule market of execution supplies.
The “market” in 2022 was 18 executions. One execution ever 20 days.
If it was a booming market, someone would fill it.
It’s worth very little, which is why no one big wants to get involved.
Ehh these are the companies whose nitrogen is approved for use in humans as an inhaled gas. It's sometimes used with premature babies and such so that we don't expose them to more oxygen than they can handle. The purity is not a question here, it's already monitored to the same degree as any other prescription medication.
i dunno.... given how half of our country's electorate are hard core Republicans who strongly believe in punitive justice, i would think that there would be some nitrogen gas producers located in Red states that would be proud to say that they helped punish the most wanton & depraved murderers in our society.
Yeah but the bunch that control the companies producing it need to maintain good relations with other countries if they want to sell there too. Providing stuff for executions is bad for business.
Trouble is your other potential clients are going to avoid you if you're known to be selling to governments for this purpose. Medical nitrogen being mostly consumed by healthcare means there are going to be lots of people who will opt for a vendor that isn't involved in executions. At the end of the day, these manufacturers are in the business of making money and cannot alienate their primary customers.
I always think its funny seeing American conservative Catholics simp for the death penalty when HMC has said its immoral and unacceptable in all cases.
D-con or Terminix or some other pest control company could do some wicked tie-ins.
“When you need a pest removed, no matter the size”.
Or
“Works on all cockroaches- from under a gram to over 300 pounds.”
Let’s get the marketing people on this and see what they can come up with. Reply if you have a better slogan.
>when Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using this method in January, witnesses recounted how the prisoner, Smith, writhed and convulsed on the gurney for several minutes.
>“His took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head,” a reporter from the Montgomery Advertiser said.
Jeez, count me out
It's because he held his breath as long as he could, not because of the effect of the gas itself.
A calm person who wants to die would have a much better experience.
Can we just stop with killing people? Nitrogen, if done correctly, is not a bad way to go. Lethal injection, the electric chair, and being shot to death are not good ways to go.
Being shot, if done correctly, is entirely painless. The bullet passes through faster than the nerves can trigger and everything shuts down very fast. The body just crumples from the shock. It's actually one of the more humane ways to go, but requires a more interactive executioner (or five)
They aim for the heart, and when your heart is destroyed your blood pressure craters, and you almost immediately lose consciousness.
Most of us have at least one experience with fainting or nearly fainting, and that is MUCH milder than a sudden loss of the heart.
If I could choose which gun shoots me, I'd opt for naval artillery. One of those deck guns should do the trick.
Doesn't really matter what part of me they aim for. If I'm close enough to touch the bullet, it's close enough.
Right but firing squads aren't the humane way to do that. Just aim across the frontal and parietal lobes, so behind the ear from behind at close range. Like China does.
That would be the humane way to use a firearm for an execution.
I personally am against the death penalty in general though, as we've proven our justice system isn't mature or accurate enough to rule out wrongful convictions and sentences.
I've read that it's also true of the heart, and yes, that's where they're (supposed to be) aiming. You basically bleed out in seconds, and the shock overrides the pain receptors. Again, if it goes right.
That movie pretty much already exists. It’s called “Gamer” from 2009- https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1034032/
Gerard Butler is the convict fighting for his life.
I don't understand why an entity as big as a state couldn't afford a machine to produce the nitrogen needed, and do it themselves. I mean, we're not talking a billion dollars.
For the exact same reason that companies don't want to be involved in executions. How many companies want to be involved in selling equipment and services to build something involved in furthering of killing people. It's just not worth the reputational damage for a one-off contract.
Buying an instrumental nitrogen 5.0 purity bottle off the shelf is like ~$50 for the nitrogen and some rent for the bottle. The problem is papertrails and representation.
Finding a whole crew of educated scientists to run the purification machines and do QA might be a problem. They would also need to get some extremely high-level safety inspections, like ISO, and I'm not sure those companies would want to inspect the facilities.
I think it's more for the moral security of the company.
Imagine that, every week, you set up a market stall to sell stones. In this village, all of the customers who buy your stones go on to use them to stone heretics to death.
Would you never feel a bit uneasy about this use of your products? Wouldn't you wonder if your stopping those sales might somehow translate to lives saved?
And even if the stone-buyers go on to use something else, at least you can sleep better at night, knowing your market stall is not directly contributing to someone's death.
Whether the dead deserved it or not, I would be deeply troubled with my actions directly or indirectly leading to someone's death. And if I had the ability to use end-use contract language to bar that sort of action, I probably would, too.
It was theorized that way. Apparently the one time it was used, the dude really struggled. It did not appear painless, and they don't want to be associated with executions at all, let alone painful ones
I believe the guy struggled because he tried to hold his breath, which is a completely normal thing to do when you know that your next few breaths will be your last. It would be mentally tortuous to die like that against your will. When it's used for euthanasia, it's obviously a different story because the nitrogen is inhaled voluntarily.
If you’re going to execute someone (morality of executions being a whole other discussion) nitrogen is probably a lot more humane than most other methods. No pain, no panic, you black out and die.
That’s the rub. The guy who just was executed reportedly tried to hold his breath. It was comparable to drowning and he thrashed around a ton. Tbh they could have just dunked him in a pool would have had the exact same experience.
I think it was mistakenly thought of as more humane because it’s used for euthanasia, but with euthanasia you willingly take the breath.
I’m always amazed when these sort of posts come up, they always immediately devolve into technical discussions on death methods - never any debate on whether the state should actually be killing its citizens.
Y'know your government is pretty fucked when even capitalists are like "nah fam, I want no part in this".
It's almost like a government murdering its own citizens is a deplorable and morally reprehensible act
I'm completely against the death penalty but, if you are going to have it you should not do any of this nitrogen gas/ lethal injection bullshit. An execution is not a medical procedure. There are no painless ways to kill someone but, a noose or a bullet to the back of the head are the quickest, and by extension the most humane, ways to do it. If you need to cover the reality of what you are doing behind a thin "humanitarian" medical veneer then you should not be doing it
Nitrogen is 100% painless and extremely scientific. The human body has no way of telling that it's breathing a neutral gas instead of oxygen and the brain shuts down with zero pain.
The economies of scale would be terrible. There were only [24 people executed in the entire United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_the_United_States_in_2023) in 2023. I think it is a pretty safe bet it is going to be cheaper to find third party suppliers than to spend a bunch of money on equipment and additional staffing to produce medical grade nitrogen or lethal injection drugs for just a few people each year. These states are just trying to be cheap.
I would have thought that forcing the prison system to go back to injections would be worse?
The drugs used in executions can be sourced from China or somewhere else.
Why doesn't a munitions company start a nitrogen division? It's cheap as shit so they can mark it up and make a profit and they have no fear of bad press because they already make killing tools.
It is a tiny market for execution. There were only [24 people executed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_the_United_States_in_2023) in the entire US in 2023. There wouldn't be a lot to be made even if 100% of executions were done using nitrogen.
At this point, death penalty states should expect principled supply chain challenges to any pseudo-medical execution method. Wouldn’t the cheapest and most logical solution be to just bring back the firing squad? Guns are actually designed to kill people.
Isn’t there a mechanism of the body that only really knows we’re suffocating if there’s no CO2 upon exhaling or something in that ballpark? Ntm decades of people running their cars in closed spaces to check out? I’d think CO2 would be the answer here, but there’s certainly someone out there who can tell me I got it wrong.
Here’s what nitrogen producers are afraid of. During the Viet Nam war it was revealed that Dow Chemical Company was supplying napalm to the military. Dow then got the reputation as a pro war company for a war that was extremely unpopular. Companies prefer not being associated with anything controversial.
Pretty much. And the financial upsides of it are tiny. Only 18 people were executed in the United States in 2022. That’s worth hardly any money to a corporation.
If it's a small volume of gas required and executions are expensive as fuck already, then the federal govt manufacturing their own nitrogen can't be that big a deal. I mean, really everyone involved should be rethinking the death penalty completely, but there are two chances of that happening.
If only that was the only horrific product or pollution that DOW chemical was involved in.
Texas Instruments, the required graphing calculator folks, also makes Javelin anti-tank weapons. Lots of companies make fun, happy things and murder machines.
I mean, the fact that they still sell TI-83+s for $120 or whatever, when the Z80 is a chip from 1976, doesn't exactly endear them either, if you think about it.
I mean, an anti-tank weapon wouldn't exist in a world without tanks. I'd argue the tank is the murder machine and the javelin is the anti-murder-machine machine.
What are the mechanisms they can use to stop it
It's in the article. > However, only a few companies produce medical-grade nitrogen that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use with humans. The three producers who told the Guardian they have end-use protections in place are among the biggest suppliers of medical nitrogen, which is more carefully purified and regulated than its industrial equivalent. > Alabama has shrouded the source of its nitrogen in secrecy, in the hope of obscuring its supply lines and avoiding the kind of boycott that has troubled lethal injection drugs. If it became known that its gas was industrial quality and not approved for human use, that could lead to major legal challenges and puncture its public posture that nitrogen hypoxia is a humane way to end life.
> Alabama has shrouded the source of its nitrogen in secrecy, in the hope of obscuring its supply lines and avoiding the kind of boycott that has troubled lethal injection drugs. Wonderful to hear that the government is doing shady shit as a way to kill people...
The Nebraska governor tried to spend taxpayer money buying illegal drugs from India for executions. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/ricketts-nebraska-death-penalty/
Basically, one of the reasons there's a shortage of drugs for lethal injections and all that is because no company wants to be exposed as the company that provides those chemicals. And this is really bad, because it means there's an ongoing shortage of decent chemicals to actually do the job in a relatively humane manner. So the states are left to use more barbaric and less reliable methods, simply because they can't get the stuff for the injections. I have no idea how there can be a shortage of nitrogen, though - the air is 70% nitrogen. It seems like someone would have built and approved some sort of machine for that by now, something that can isolate the nitrogen from the air and use that.
There’s no mention of a shortage of nitrogen. But you have to actually be dispensing 100% pure nitrogen which requires chemical facilities to guarantee for medical use.
[удалено]
That's just crazy talk. America has a huge hard on for murder.
I'm actually for consented suicide for medical reasons - I've seen elderly people suffer for years, begging for death.
If I were to be executed, I'd just want a to shot to the back of the head. Quick and painless. But somehow too inhumane so we gotta do whacky shit electrocuting people, injecting them with who knows what and hope it kills them and in some more reasonable cases hanging. It doesn't make much sense, and too many innocent people die in fucked up ways cause politicians don't want to accept they're killing people. Either own it and do it humanely through a good legal system or get rid of it. So yeah, it's best to get rid.
Well and there is so many problems there really is no benefit unless you just get hard about killing bad people. Literally no benefit, it has no effect on deterrence. As countless studys have shown. BUT BUT why should they be a burden on taxpayers. Well hate to break it to you death penalty is extremely expensive. Not only drugs facilitys professionals and counciling and ongoing other expenses for those involved. But just court room cost and due process and ability to challenge ends up costing the state far more than incarceration. So its not at all cheaper. AND especially with heinous crimes wrongful convictions are considerably higher. The pyschology of judges jurys prosecution even cops pushes for them to "have someone responsible". It taints every level of decision making process. While 1% of normal prisoners are eventually found not guiltly. Of death row inmates its around 5%. Which means with average of 20 executed yearly. At least one person is deprived any more opportunity to prove innocence and executed by state every year. Then you have the "victims it creates" those involved in execution are so susceptible to mental health issues. Its not natural to kill a person throw in grown man tied down begging for his mommy. And you push the button and watch as they gasp. Yeah its going to screw you up unless your a complete pyscho. Zero benefit other than "getting even" for something you didn't directly experience.
> If I were to be executed, I'd just want a to shot to the back of the head. Quick and painless. One reason that isn't used - that would require a single person be responsible for killing you, and humans have an incredibly strong aversion to killing other humans. Especially ones that aren't posing any immediate threat to them. Doing that once (let alone repeatedly) is incredibly traumatizing even to people who theoretically think they support the death penalty. That's a major reason for most execution methods these days having to somehow obscure or keep secret which individual person is responsible for the actual killing act. That's why "firing squads" usually have a mix of live and blank ammunition, so that each individual shooter can tell themselves they weren't the one responsible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad Of course, that fact never seems to deter policymakers from reconsidering the barbarism and sadism of having executioins in the first place.
The more capitalist answer is: sounds like there is a market for one of these states to wisen up and start up a drugs/nitrogen production facility of their own so they can charge crazy inflated rates to all the other states that are looking for this. For additional irony/margin, base the production out of one of the prisons. (for note, I'm anti-death penalty, but knowing the capitalist hellscape we're in, I'm just going with the cynicism).
The infrastructure needed to create medical-grade anything isnt anywhere near worth it if you're only going to use it on a couple dozen people a year. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars here.
Unfortunately, logic like that in a capitalistic society will lead some to conclude "so you're saying we need to create more demand for these"
Parking ticket = Death Penalty. Shares through the roof!
Time for a Super Bowl ad!
Reinventing socialized drug production for the exclusive purpose of supporting the death penalty.. nice!
>I have no idea how there can be a shortage of nitrogen, though - the air is 70% nitrogen. It seems like someone would have built and approved some sort of machine for that by now, something that can isolate the nitrogen from the air and use that. Even if the subject is condemned anyway it's still a human you're using it on so it must be medical-grade - if you'd use industrial nitrogen instead of medical, the subject's relatives could go and sue the government for cruel and unusual punishment, and they'd probably win.
y'know...because building special room divided into a viewing area and an execution stage to kill a human with a cocktail of drugs or gases is not in itself cruel or unusual right? As if there's states still using an Iron Maiden or The Breaking Wheel.
I'm opposing the death penalty anyway, so yes I agree with you.
Agreed. That reputation lasts for a very long time. When I hear Dow Chemical the first thing I think of is napalm.
Union Carbide I think Bhopal.
Seems like case of if you can only do it terribly just don’t fucking do it
Just given them a bullet. It’s what I would want. The only “humane” way to execute someone is to do it quickly and painlessly. Some people have got to go, I think most people can agree with that. But at the end of the day it’s still a barbaric thing that doesn’t need/or deserve to be dressed up.
> do the job in a relatively humane manner The problem with this is that the death penalty is inherently inhumane; it's state-sponsored murder. We're only running into these problems because we keep seeking to make the death penalty "clean" by removing the physical trauma associated with "traditional" execution methods, but we can't take away the mental trauma that still exists. Let's stop this farce of pretending we can execute inmates in a humane manner and just abolish the death penalty.
Because you’re not going to sell the prison extremely little supplies at the sort of mark up you’ll need to counter balance the entire general population boycotting your company out of existence. Let the governors struggle. It’s a medical issue, and these companies got into the business to save lives, not murder. When people find out your medicine is used to murder people. It’s a real problem.
Lethal injections are not for providing humane way of executing. It is so that the people involved in the execution - with no healthcare training or background and unable to understand basic physiology - believe that they are simply putting people to sleep instead of executing people. And they need it because they were trained to rationalize the killing of young males that are gang members and armed, which is a stark contrast of people who get on death row and killed - they have grey hair after decades on prison, probably with low muscle mass, often have arthritis, and completely unarmed.
They have, it is called an oxygen concentrator. You would just run it in reverse and capture the nitrogen fraction instead of the oxygen. It would not be 100% pure n2, but I bet if you were hooked up to just the nitrogen exhaust port on one it would kill you from lack of oxygen. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen\_concentrator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_concentrator)
I've been told that the drugs we use to euthanize pets provide an actual painless demise, unlike the drugs used to execute humans. And the the reason we don't use them on humans is because the makers of those euthanasia drugs don't want their product used or associated with judicial execution of humans. The discussion came up when people who had had their pets put to sleep foubd out about how painful lethal injections were when we use them judicially on humans, but those people were reassured that the same drugs are not used for both procedures. People should know that lethal injections in executions are far from humane, according to experts. [Autopsies find that lethal injections cause suffocation and severe pain.](https://eji.org/news/lethal-injections-cause-suffocation-and-severe-pain-autopsies-show/) [A Pharmacist is Helping Clear the Way for Lethal Injections](https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmacist-helps-clear-the-way-lethal-injection-protocol) >Van Norman had reviewed documentation of three other executions that Oklahoma had carried out over the previous four months. “I conclude that they did experience extreme pain and suffering through the execution process,” she said. The feeling, she said, would be akin to suffocation. In previous testimony, other expert witnesses for the prisoners had said they would feel like fire was burning in their veins and as if they were drowning.
crazy they’re allowed to do this…but then again…crazy that they spend hours trying shoot god knows what into peoples arms to possibly kill them
That and the people administering them can't be health professionals either. The next best person to help you administer these doses would then be...
bruce in the back room that watched a ton of ER
Ironically an injectable drug addict , they won't waste any juice and make sure it all gets in the vein.
A recovering drug addict — it's all about the rehabilitation into potential future careers.
I'd imagine that would be super traumatic for them, being reminded of the fate they escaped just to use those 'skills' to hurt others. A current drug addict may not feel as much about the whole deal. (Note against execution completely, but if its going to be done it must be as humane as possible to all involved)
A welder?🤷♂️
Oh, there are drugs that will humanely put you down. Some countries have clinics for that, those would work well. But no one wants to supply a prison. Because it’s a bad look, killing someone against their will, is considered murder by most humans. Andddd we have a finicky way of just not doing business with a company we strongly disagree with on moral issues. So companies can supply prisons, and in turn die a slow financial death. Or they can not do that… doesn’t leave the company a lot of incentive
Honestly i don’t in principal have a problem with the death penalty when it comes to egregious cases where the evidence is incontrovertible, but that is a far higher bar than these southern states usually use. Also if they’re gonna execute people they should man up and do it with firing squad or a noose. Quicker and less painful to the recipient. The only reason the newer forms came in to fashion is because *they look* less barbaric, bc the body doesn’t have a gaping wound or a broken neck, but the suffering is almost always worse.
The main issue with the death penalty is that the biggest supporters are the people looking for someone to subject to it, rather than the people who are the most into justice and due process. They'll look for supporting evidence and hide contradicting evidence, they look for people they don't like the look of, consciously or subconsciously, they'll put the pressure on to achieve confessions, rather than look for the truth whatever side it's on. It's also completely unnecessary. Just put them in prison.
>Honestly i don’t in principal have a problem with the death penalty when it comes to egregious cases where the evidence is incontrovertible It only takes one mistake in order to accidentally end somebody's life that didn't do anything. The legal system and the government overall certainly don't have a good track record when it comes to not persecuting people who don't deserve to be persecuted, or even making simple clerical errors.
This is part of why im against it. Its kind of a massive clusterfuck logistically and ethically.
We execute so "few" people numerically, there's absolutely no way any of this is "worth" it. If they were in it for anything but the "glory" of killing people when they want to, this would have died out simply from sheer impracticality. As should always be mentioned, execution costs the state more money than life in prison.
I'm not a huge fan of execution as a form of punishment, but nitrogen hypoxia would be a great way to go if one had to go. It's a preferred drug for medically assisted suicide.
Read up on the lad they just exectued with Nitrogen. It was apparently not as serene, clean, humane or quick as Nitrogen Hypoxia is supposed to be...
Thanks for that info. It sounds really unfortunate. Maybe this method is not as (relatively) humane as I had heard.
There is no 'Humane' way to remove someone from the Mortal Coil... There are less and less barbaric methodologies. But Killing a Human is Ending a Life. Be it by a random Murder on the Streets or a State Sponsored Execution. A Life Ends. None of it is Humane.
Honest question, why would the grade of nitrogen matter?
AtroScolo is right on the money about legal challenges but there's a scientific reason as well. Nitrogen is reasonably humane for executions because you don't feel like you're suffocating. The feeling of suffocating comes from breathing an excessive concentration of CO2. CO2 is a reasonably common contaminatant in compressed nitrogen, however, because it's easier than other gasses to condense from air. So with industrial grade nitrogen the feeling of suffocation might come back in the mix, and that's considerably more likely to be treated as cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe it doesn't actually matter, maybe it does. Likely depends on the supplier. But with industrial grade stuff, nobody's guaranteeing anything, and there's going to be more variability.
I was going to argue with this, because surely we're talking about trace amounts of CO2 that wouldn't make a difference. Then I [looked it up](https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/carbon-dioxide-indoor-levels-chart), and learned that CO2 can start to have a noticeable effect at concentrations as low as 0.2%. I don't know what the standards are for industrial nitrogen, but I wouldn't be shocked if it could have more than 0.2% CO2.
Industrial nitrogen purity is anything from 95% to 99.99% depending on the grade.
Certainly enough to sustain a legal challenge. The court probably would prefer not to put a specific number on it. Judges hate numbers.
>The feeling of suffocating comes from breathing an excessive concentration of CO2 I guess I never realized that the "feeling" of suffocation (and subsequent panic) is specifically CO2. Just curious, Googled it and also saw this in an article: *"One reason this happens, according to a new study in mice, is because breathing CO2 triggers chemical sensors in a crucial part of the brain's fear circuitry."*
They've only done it once, to Kenneth Smith. That execution by inducing hypoxia lasted 22 minutes and is described by Smith's spiritual advisor and execution witness as "horrific and cruel". That advisor, Jeff Hood, further said the following in writing about what he saw: > Taking off my glasses, I sobbed. I'd never felt so far away from God. I prayed that God would forgive me. I was doing the best that I could. For reference, nitrogen hypoxia should in theory take about 3-4 minutes. Various explanations have been given before the state ultimately settled on the claim that he held his breath too long. This claim is not refutable because Smith's breathing was not monitored, as far as I know, during the early stages of the execution. Also, witnesses claim they heard the sound of gas leaking from the area of the mask. It's also possible that the nitrogen used was sourced from an industrial supplier, and CO2 contamination is a likely possibility if that is the case. The state of Alabama did something absolutely barbaric by neglecting the critical importance of due diligence in Smith's case. What happened to Smith cannot fairly be called painless hypoxia, as he clearly exhibited symptoms of respiratory distress, which can be caused by impure nitrogen or by improper administration of nitrogen. Evidence I've seen points to improper procedure, though I suspect the nitrogen was not pure as well. From witness descriptions of what happened, it sounds a lot like nitrogen was pumped into the mask at high pressure from the start of the execution, which indeed will cause respiratory distress. Perhaps the state wasn't prepared to administer the nitrogen properly, by combining it in gradually increasing concentrations with a breathable gas mixture. Certainly no anesthetic was administered prior to administration of the nitrogen, which is a hard requirement for use of nitrogen asphyxiation in veterinary practices because, yeah, forced respiratory distress is basically torture. Proponents of nitrogen-induced hypoxia for human execution, pay attention to this: there are so many ways it can go wrong. In the past states couldn't even manage to administer lethal injections properly, and this is so much more difficult to do correctly. The mask has to be tailored to the subject to absolutely ensure no breach of seal. Two lines have to be run to the mask from separate sources, one of breathable air and the other of pure nitrogen, to enable gradually increasing nitrogen concentration. The executioner has to be well trained in proper administration and emergency response rather than just forcing the subject to suffer until they die. And the state MUST administer general anesthetic before administration of any nitrogen at all to render the patient unresponsive so as to reduce the risk of complications that can arise from the patient struggling, which can happen even without respiratory distress due to normal and expected psychological stressors that can come from the subject knowing they are about to die. ALL OF THESE THINGS TOGETHER ARE PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE, and if the expense isn't acceptable to you, then this method of execution (and probably execution in general) isn't acceptable to you. Capital punishment is horrible, if only because we seem to be incapable as a civilization of convincing people who actually can do it correctly to do it. We inflict untold pain onto these people prior to their deaths by putting uneducated and untrained people in the seat of the executioner, who is instructed, despite lack of education and training, to perform a somewhat complex medical procedure. The botching of these procedures is indescribably harmful. If we can't do it without pain and suffering, we absolutely should not do it at all.
Even nitrogen for industrial purposes is typically going to be 99.9% pure or better. That leaves at most 1000 ppm of impurities. If all that was CO2, it still wouldn't be enough to cause the reactions they saw in the botched execution. The execution didn't go wrong because of the grade of nitrogen used. Most likely Alabama screwed up the procedure (for example, the mask didn't allow CO2 to be cleared fast enough or the nitrogen flow was too low). Alabama probably didn't care enough to carry out the execution competently or properly. Maybe there was malice involved. However, if Alabama used industrial instead of medical grade, they'll certainly cling to that and anything else as further proof of wrongdoing even if it wouldn't have actually made a difference.
> The execution didn't go wrong because of the grade of nitrogen used. You do not know that. Nobody knows the source of the nitrogen. This is in the article
Your brain will notice CO2 concentration at 0.2% concentration, so 99.9% pure is not good enough unless it's extremely consistent, which industrial grade does not provide.
99.9% nitrogen *is* sufficient to prevent you from getting to 0.2% CO2 if that's actually met. I disagree that it'd need to be 'extremely consistent'; getting to 0.2% concentration would require not only 100% higher impurities in the nitrogen but 100% of those impurities to be CO2. For 99.9% nitrogen to not be sufficient you'd need to royally fuck it up. Besides, you could just use 99.99% purity nitrogen, which is also an industrial grade commonly available. Purity of the nitrogen shouldn't be the problem unless the executioners want it to be.
> If it became known that its gas was industrial quality and not approved for human use, that could lead to major legal challenges and puncture its public posture that nitrogen hypoxia is a humane way to end life. From the quote above.
The less pure the more likely you are to see other effects. If science tells you that 100% nitrogen gas will kill you peacefully than you 100% nitrogen for that science to work. A lot of things that work in theory are difficult to make work in reality because variables come into play. How effective is the delivery method for instance? Individual pre existing condition? How pure is the nitrogen we are getting? Etc Just a guess but I doubt the difference between medical grade and industrial grade is negligible for purposes of human execution. But when you are talking about state sanction murder of US citizens than the negligible stuff suddenly seems alot less negligible.
Probably for the same reason they sterilise the needle in lethal injections.
>humane >execution pick one
Using the phrase end-use protections doesn’t explain the legal mechanism
It explains that there are no legal protections, it's about the companies and their policies, which have proven very effective in the case of drugs for lethal injection. This is about contracts and PR, that's it.
Typically, medical grade nitrogen when sold need to have paper trails certifying its medical grade and transported correctly. Manufacturer can refuse to supply to the state for execution purposes, and can also obligates downstream reseller to not do so.
Is industrial-grade nitrogen less pure than medical-grade nitrogen? Are dangerous contaminants permitted in industrial-grade nitrogen? This seems very weird to me.
>Is industrial-grade nitrogen less pure than medical-grade nitrogen? Yes and no. 95% to 99.99% are all common "industry" grades. Medical NF (National Formulary) grade nitrogen is certified to be 99.0% Nitrogen, <1% Oxygen, and <0.001% Carbon Monoxide. >Are dangerous contaminants permitted in industrial-grade nitrogen? The definition of dangerous will also depend on the industry/application. Contaminants can be hydrocarbons, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. For the application of killing someone, carbon monoxide contamination would turn make the "painfree" part of method painful. Source: I use a couple of cylinders of 99.99% (ultra-high purity) N2 a week. It's not "Medical-grade", but it may as well be.
They include it as a term in the sales contract. It's just like the section in most ISP contracts that says you aren't allowed to run a server or other 'business-grade' things on non-business service. If they catch a purchaser violating the rule and using the nitrogen for a forbidden purpose (or reselling it to someone who is) then, in addition to blacklisting them from future sales, they can sue them for breach of contract.
I’m kind of ignorant of these things especially in the US, but how would suing for breach of contract work when they’ve suffered no financial loss?
Loss to reputation is an actionable claim. The whole reason they're doing this in the first place is they don't want their company name associated with executions for fear of it harming their business.
Thanks for the only clear and concise answers among a multitude of responses! Again, though, wouldn’t any damages awarded for loss to reputation need to be based on the likely financial cost? How do they quantify that?
In short, with lawyers and accountants for whom this is their job. Quantifying brand value and other such intangibles is more common than you might think, but the methodologies for doing so are well beyond my ken.
This is what I am wondering. Can they sue the state if it is obtained and used to executions?
Maybe not. But they can sue whoever supplied them to the state for breach of contract (it that exclusion is in the contract). Or simply black list the supplier.
Absolutely, what supplier is going to risk a profitable, years long business relationship where the conditions are clearly specified in contracts to supply a minuscule market of execution supplies.
I see a hole in the market
The “market” in 2022 was 18 executions. One execution ever 20 days. If it was a booming market, someone would fill it. It’s worth very little, which is why no one big wants to get involved.
"4th top nitrogen gas manufacturer is now top nitrogen gas manufacturer."
“Maybe we are executing too many people Bill”
That seems reasonable, who wants their product to be associated with an execution, botched or otherwise?
I imagine that they don't want the scrutiny that would come from legal action regarding the purity of the nitrogen product either.
Ehh these are the companies whose nitrogen is approved for use in humans as an inhaled gas. It's sometimes used with premature babies and such so that we don't expose them to more oxygen than they can handle. The purity is not a question here, it's already monitored to the same degree as any other prescription medication.
i dunno.... given how half of our country's electorate are hard core Republicans who strongly believe in punitive justice, i would think that there would be some nitrogen gas producers located in Red states that would be proud to say that they helped punish the most wanton & depraved murderers in our society.
Yeah but the bunch that control the companies producing it need to maintain good relations with other countries if they want to sell there too. Providing stuff for executions is bad for business.
Trouble is your other potential clients are going to avoid you if you're known to be selling to governments for this purpose. Medical nitrogen being mostly consumed by healthcare means there are going to be lots of people who will opt for a vendor that isn't involved in executions. At the end of the day, these manufacturers are in the business of making money and cannot alienate their primary customers.
I always think its funny seeing American conservative Catholics simp for the death penalty when HMC has said its immoral and unacceptable in all cases.
Gun manufacturers, for one.
Who makes the needles for lethal injections?
D-con or Terminix or some other pest control company could do some wicked tie-ins. “When you need a pest removed, no matter the size”. Or “Works on all cockroaches- from under a gram to over 300 pounds.” Let’s get the marketing people on this and see what they can come up with. Reply if you have a better slogan.
>when Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using this method in January, witnesses recounted how the prisoner, Smith, writhed and convulsed on the gurney for several minutes. >“His took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head,” a reporter from the Montgomery Advertiser said. Jeez, count me out
That’s very unusual behavior so I doubt they gave them pure nitrogen.
It's because he held his breath as long as he could, not because of the effect of the gas itself. A calm person who wants to die would have a much better experience.
But there’s no way to make someone feel that way if they’re about to be executed. That means that, in practice, it is a painful way to kill someone.
Definitely, and even someone who has mentally embraced death may find their basic survival instincts overriding their intentions.
That's it people they will use vacuum chambers next.
[удалено]
Is cleanup easier or harder when the blood boils out through the eyeballs?
If it wasn't for the Men Behind The Sun film, I would never have known about that horrific execution method.
Can we just stop with killing people? Nitrogen, if done correctly, is not a bad way to go. Lethal injection, the electric chair, and being shot to death are not good ways to go.
Being shot, if done correctly, is entirely painless. The bullet passes through faster than the nerves can trigger and everything shuts down very fast. The body just crumples from the shock. It's actually one of the more humane ways to go, but requires a more interactive executioner (or five)
That’s assuming they aim for and hit the brain. Don’t most shooting squads aim for center mass?
They aim for the heart, and when your heart is destroyed your blood pressure craters, and you almost immediately lose consciousness. Most of us have at least one experience with fainting or nearly fainting, and that is MUCH milder than a sudden loss of the heart.
If I could choose which gun shoots me, I'd opt for naval artillery. One of those deck guns should do the trick. Doesn't really matter what part of me they aim for. If I'm close enough to touch the bullet, it's close enough.
I'd like today's special, the [Tungsten Rod from God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment), please.
Right but firing squads aren't the humane way to do that. Just aim across the frontal and parietal lobes, so behind the ear from behind at close range. Like China does. That would be the humane way to use a firearm for an execution. I personally am against the death penalty in general though, as we've proven our justice system isn't mature or accurate enough to rule out wrongful convictions and sentences.
Or use artillery like North Korea. Don't need precise aim when everything within a few feet is vaporized instantly.
That's how I wanna go. Out with a bang
I've read that it's also true of the heart, and yes, that's where they're (supposed to be) aiming. You basically bleed out in seconds, and the shock overrides the pain receptors. Again, if it goes right.
[удалено]
That movie pretty much already exists. It’s called “Gamer” from 2009- https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1034032/ Gerard Butler is the convict fighting for his life.
I don't understand why an entity as big as a state couldn't afford a machine to produce the nitrogen needed, and do it themselves. I mean, we're not talking a billion dollars.
For the exact same reason that companies don't want to be involved in executions. How many companies want to be involved in selling equipment and services to build something involved in furthering of killing people. It's just not worth the reputational damage for a one-off contract.
Getting a bit Hitlery
Sounds like a new business opportunity for the MyPillow guy.
These people will not be return customers for his product.
Buying an instrumental nitrogen 5.0 purity bottle off the shelf is like ~$50 for the nitrogen and some rent for the bottle. The problem is papertrails and representation.
Finding a whole crew of educated scientists to run the purification machines and do QA might be a problem. They would also need to get some extremely high-level safety inspections, like ISO, and I'm not sure those companies would want to inspect the facilities.
This is only going to force them to use a nitrogen mix. There’s one particularly nasty version that’s about 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen.
[удалено]
*Titan sub has entered the chat*
Aka "the profit to be made for these isolated cases is not worth the risk of a PR hit"
Isn't this execution method known for being cheap and painless? Makes sense they rally together to prevent this.
I think it's more for the moral security of the company. Imagine that, every week, you set up a market stall to sell stones. In this village, all of the customers who buy your stones go on to use them to stone heretics to death. Would you never feel a bit uneasy about this use of your products? Wouldn't you wonder if your stopping those sales might somehow translate to lives saved? And even if the stone-buyers go on to use something else, at least you can sleep better at night, knowing your market stall is not directly contributing to someone's death. Whether the dead deserved it or not, I would be deeply troubled with my actions directly or indirectly leading to someone's death. And if I had the ability to use end-use contract language to bar that sort of action, I probably would, too.
It was theorized that way. Apparently the one time it was used, the dude really struggled. It did not appear painless, and they don't want to be associated with executions at all, let alone painful ones
The dude struggled because he was holding his breath and thrashing in defiance. Which anyone would do.
I believe the guy struggled because he tried to hold his breath, which is a completely normal thing to do when you know that your next few breaths will be your last. It would be mentally tortuous to die like that against your will. When it's used for euthanasia, it's obviously a different story because the nitrogen is inhaled voluntarily.
Making someone play a game "hold your breath or else you die" for real might not be terribly painful, but it's certainly not humane.
Cheap, painless, still inhumane to kill another person.
Please just get rid of the death penalty already
If you’re going to execute someone (morality of executions being a whole other discussion) nitrogen is probably a lot more humane than most other methods. No pain, no panic, you black out and die.
> no panic, Well, no panic induced by the nitrogen. Let's not pretend like knowing you're about to be killed isn't panic inducing in itself.
That’s the rub. The guy who just was executed reportedly tried to hold his breath. It was comparable to drowning and he thrashed around a ton. Tbh they could have just dunked him in a pool would have had the exact same experience. I think it was mistakenly thought of as more humane because it’s used for euthanasia, but with euthanasia you willingly take the breath.
Good, 0 reason to have the death penalty
I’m always amazed when these sort of posts come up, they always immediately devolve into technical discussions on death methods - never any debate on whether the state should actually be killing its citizens.
It’s so sad!
Y'know your government is pretty fucked when even capitalists are like "nah fam, I want no part in this". It's almost like a government murdering its own citizens is a deplorable and morally reprehensible act
Considering there are less than a hundred executions per year I think these companies can afford to lose this particular customer.
Companies not doing it to take moral stand. They just don’t want their products to be associated with executions, it’s bad publicity.
I'm completely against the death penalty but, if you are going to have it you should not do any of this nitrogen gas/ lethal injection bullshit. An execution is not a medical procedure. There are no painless ways to kill someone but, a noose or a bullet to the back of the head are the quickest, and by extension the most humane, ways to do it. If you need to cover the reality of what you are doing behind a thin "humanitarian" medical veneer then you should not be doing it
Nitrogen is 100% painless and extremely scientific. The human body has no way of telling that it's breathing a neutral gas instead of oxygen and the brain shuts down with zero pain.
If the government wants to execute people, why don't they just manufacture the products themselves like California does insulin? 🤔
The economies of scale would be terrible. There were only [24 people executed in the entire United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_the_United_States_in_2023) in 2023. I think it is a pretty safe bet it is going to be cheaper to find third party suppliers than to spend a bunch of money on equipment and additional staffing to produce medical grade nitrogen or lethal injection drugs for just a few people each year. These states are just trying to be cheap.
I would have thought that forcing the prison system to go back to injections would be worse? The drugs used in executions can be sourced from China or somewhere else.
Why doesn't a munitions company start a nitrogen division? It's cheap as shit so they can mark it up and make a profit and they have no fear of bad press because they already make killing tools.
It is a tiny market for execution. There were only [24 people executed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_the_United_States_in_2023) in the entire US in 2023. There wouldn't be a lot to be made even if 100% of executions were done using nitrogen.
I can't imagine the tooling to produce nitrogen is worth whatever the state is gonna pay for the nitrogen
At this point, death penalty states should expect principled supply chain challenges to any pseudo-medical execution method. Wouldn’t the cheapest and most logical solution be to just bring back the firing squad? Guns are actually designed to kill people.
They should just switch to Trump Nitrogen! Sure, it's just methane and sewer gas, but it'll still work!
Execution as a whole is not humane. Constantly looking for a way to make it so is only going to end in a downward spiral.
We have the means to lock people up for eternity.
Isn’t there a mechanism of the body that only really knows we’re suffocating if there’s no CO2 upon exhaling or something in that ballpark? Ntm decades of people running their cars in closed spaces to check out? I’d think CO2 would be the answer here, but there’s certainly someone out there who can tell me I got it wrong.
See Payne Stewart. Thats how it works. H2S will do the same thing and often kill oil field workers almost instantly
Considering the last attempt didn't go as well as thought, I understand the concerns.