Apparently, Ohio and Texas are trying to do an end-around by going to compounding pharmacies
So, a few questions:
Has anything like this ever been a real catalyst for social change, where a manufacturer or group of manufacturers or business simply does not want to be associated with a state action and withholds a product?
Will this cause any sort of permanent change in the death penalty in the US?
If so, is this a good way for such a change to take place? If not, what will happen?
I’m pretty sure that states with the death penalty would simply revert to electrocution, firing squad or hanging if there was absolutely no way to get the drugs for lethal injection in a reasonably cost-effective fashion, AND they couldn’t find some Dr. willing to write up a new lethal injection protocol using more readily available drugs.
I think that moral stands taken by profit driven companies do have the potential to be noticed by the public and have some impact. If executions methods are suddenly more “cruel” there can also be an impact.
What happens if/when the local compounding pharmacy messes something up and causes extra suffering to the prisoner?
Why could they not obtain whatever it is that is used to put down dogs, or horses, and just use that? I know it is a two-drug combo that is used - it would not be that hard for the state to acquire the two said drugs and administer the same way as to animals. Or, are human execution drugs special in some way?
Depending on the particular case, it probably is the same drug, often pentobarbitol.
The same problem applies. Once the compounding pharmacy finds out what the drugs are to be used for or if the public catches wind and raises a stink, they don’t produce any more for the state. That happened in Texas when a Woodlands company got outed. Some would probably still make it. Probably depends on what the company thinks of the ethics of making drugs expressly ordered and created to kill people.
I can’t help but see the similarities between this issue and the one where pharmacists refuse to provide contraceptives to people, citing “moral objections”. In that issue and this one, I stand with the buyer: the store/company/seller should sell what he has to sell and that’s it. Its not up to them to determine how its used. If they have an objection to it, vote to eliminate the DP from the state. Otherwise, sell your damn drugs
Antibob says it, almost. There are ten thousand ways to kill people. Anti-DPers have gotten the laws written so that only fresh, specially-compounded, specific substances can be used for executions… and guess what, all the stocks of those are now outdated and can’t be used. How sad.
It’s not about the chemicals. It’s about the politics, and groups that use any tiny chiseling point to control a major issue. (I don’t think anyone really, really gives a shit about spotted owls or Mission Blue butterflies, for example; there are very close companion species to both. But protecting them protected the last stands of old-growth redwood in California and the Marin Headlands from development.) What needs to be done is to expand the legal list of lethal drugs to include ones that have other, legitimate purposes. Insulin overdose, for example. Anesthesia into the ground plane. Etc. Then it’s about the act, not the trivialities of who compounded what chemical. (Or molded the bullet.)
They’re “special” in that they’re licensed for human use, and veterinary medicine isn’t. Considering that lethal injection must be administered using sterile technique (for god knows what reason, since infection isn’t really of a concern) I’m sure that a lawyer who found out we were using horse tranquilizer would have a field day on “cruel and unusual” or illegal use of veterinary pharmeceuticals grounds.
I think it’s hard to just say, “Oh, let’s use a horse drug” when they’ve made such a big deal about how humane the current drugs are. It looks bad, to put it simply, like they aren’t really concerned with it being humane but just want to rush out and grab something and be sneaky about it.
YogSosoth, would you require a pharmaceutical company to make BC pills if they chose to stop?
It is relatively easy to kill people humanely. Just put a bag over their head containing an inert gas like nitrogen, or (if you want the experience to be fun), nitrous oxide. Suffocation without all the nasty thrashing and choking.
As far as I know, Texas doesn’t require (by law) any specific drugsto be used (just saying that you have to use lethal injection of some kind). So I guess they could resort to using more generic off-the-shelf stuff like fentanyl or just plain old morphine if they had to, although I guess there would have to be some sort of administrative rule change to allow them to do that. I expect that the current government of Texas would get creative rather than not execute people though.
Whatever solution they find needs to keep health professionals out of it. Physicians, nurses, and pharmacists have ethical (and licensing) obligations to only act in the patient’s best interest to serve their legitimate medical needs, not against their best interest.
Care to elaborate? This statement would strike me as bizarre even if you didn’t previously imply that the government can’t do anything right. What possible role does the death penalty fill that lifelong imprisonment doesn’t? What possible purpose could it have beyond vindictive revenge?
