Recently, I had to have a kitten euthanized. I stayed with him as the vet gave him the injection. He passed away peacefully, with no apparent pain, no spasms. His heart just stopped, and he was gone.
Now, I’ve heard that the lethal injections that are administered to criminals on death row can have lots of complications. One of the criticisms is that their death is often painful, sometimes accompanied with spasms.
Why isn’t the same chemical that is used to euthanized animals used to execute criminals?
It’s compounded by the fact that doctors generally won’t participate in an execution, so the person giving the shot may not have any medical experience.
I’d rather we stop trying to pretend execution is sterile and clean and go back to the noose and the guillotine.
As UDS says, the manufacturers of drugs that are intended for veterinary and human treatments have ethical objections to those drugs being used to kill people. The EU also objects, and has made it illegal for European drug manufacturers to sell drugs to US governments to kill people. There’s speculation that is one of the reasons for the spike in botched executions: state governments are finding it more difficult to obtain drugs to kill people, so are relying on mixtures prepared by compounding pharmacies in the US.
As well, drugs like the ones used for cats and dogs are normally only approved for veterinary use. It’s against federal law to use veterinary-only drugs for humans - even if the purpose is killing the human. One of the states got in trouble with the FDA a few years ago for trying to stockpile a drug that was not approved for human use.
This is one of the issues that does come up. It appears painless and peaceful, but it’s not really been adequately studied. To be sure, there’s usually a lack of visible distress, but that isn’t necessarily a lack of actual distress. Most people don’t question it in cases of their pets. And, in some (but not all) cases, yes, there’s visible distress for animals as well.
At any rate, pentobarbitol is commonly used for animal euthenasia. It has also been used in some cases as a lethal injection drug.
So, yes, the ‘same’ drugs can and have been used. Basically, the OP is based on a false premise.
I think they should build the world’s largest wood chipper — something with a 15 foot wide barrel with 4-inch blades rotating 4200 RPM or akin to that — and use that. It should be instantaneous and hence virtually painless while at the same time incredibly gory, which in turn should horrify people (as should be the case, both for the extremity of what it is that we’re doing and as the maximum deterrent impact).
Or, more practically, a firing squad using machine guns with soft-nosed bullets.
Or WTF, a heroin IV overdose, right into a major artery. That ought to be pretty painless.
Or an initial injection of standard general-anesthesia medication followed by an overdose of any strong CNS depressant to stop respiration. That ought to be clean, painless, and reliable.
I have no idea so I have to ask; could it be that the human knowing it is a lethal injection be somehow reacting, or physically fighting the drug, more than an animal in an unusual setting (for it) would? In other words; the human knows he/she is about to die and the pet probably does not. Does that kick in something physiological and psychological at the same time?
And the wiki article mentions that Danish law prevents the Danish manufacturer of the drug from selling it to any state with the death penalty, and distributors of the Danish drug in the US are forbidden by contract from selling it to states with the death penalty.
Missouri is turning to compounding pharmacies to obtain supplies of pentobarbital.
Not just EU. When had California trying to buy execution drugs from a Pakistani manufacturer. Who declined. Even though Pakistan has a death penalty.
Somehow, no one wants to be knowm as “the Company which makes the drugs they use to snuff people”.
The easy answer is to stop doing it altogether - there is no evidence that the death penalty deters murderers. Alternatively - do it in public; broadcast it on TV so that everyone can see how barbaric it is.
Note that cats don’t have long histories of abusive drug history and other “lifestyle” complications.
Some of the causes of botched lethal injections include difficulty finding suitable injection sites and astonishing tolerance to drugs.
You are also talking about much larger animals which means the variations in body makeup and such have a much wider range. Trying to get the dose right so, for example, the first shot relaxes the person but doesn’t stop respiration (that old gasping for breath thing) or plain old heart stoppage (which makes the person feel like they’re having a heart attack) is much trickier.
Killing people with injections is one of the stupidest ways of doing it. When a firing squad or hanging are less brutal, you need to rethink the whole concept.