Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
Pro Life™️
Yeah, that’s a lie, always has been.
They wouldn’t know “pro-life” if it bit them on the ass. They’re simply pro-birth. Literally everything else about the GOP platform is anti-life.
Pro birth so they can supply meat to the industrial grinder and dead solders for the war machine.
And here I am on Life Lite like a pleb.
FWIW, nitrogen asphyxiation is one of the methods that’s preferred by advocates of assisted suicide. Done correctly–by which I mean in a way that doesn’t allow a buildup of CO2 in your bloodstream–it’s not only painless but gives you a mild high. The proper way to do it is with something like a BiPAP, where the air that’s being piped in is pure nitrogen, and the CO2 is all being removed immediately so you aren’t breathing it back in. Without a buildup of CO2 in your bloodstream, your brain doesn’t recognize that you’re suffocating.
Have you ever breathed in helium from a balloon and gotten lightheaded? It’s about like that.
I’m in favor of the death penalty in very, very rare cases–and this is not one where I would support it–and this is one of the surest, least barbaric ways to execute someone.
When I was ~10 I attended a wedding. Me and the other kids where tasked to fill balloons with helium and we did so without supervision. Naturally, we breathed some helium in and talked in funny voices.
I then had the bright idea to try to breathe as many of these balloons without normal air in between.
After the third of these, I lost conciousness. To me it felt as if I was gone for maybe half an hour. I was basically dreaming weird stuff. Luckily I stayed in my seat during that time and didn’t fall over or something. Noone of the others noticed anything, so it couldn’t have been that long. Maybe a few seconds in reality.
Let’s tighten this up a bit.
Inert gas asphyxiation is very much a great way to go, but it’s basically symptomless until after you lose consciousness.
You don’t get high. The “high” people get is when they are choked out. I’m not really sure on the mechanism of that, though. You don’t get lightheaded. The lightheadedness is from the blood oxygen levels increasing.
This is why it’s very dangerous to enter enclosed spaces. You simply don’t know you’re about to die until it’s too late. Plus, people come in to try to rescue you and succumb as well.
Anyway, lots of people have this experience. It’s a common part of training for rebreathers for use in scuba diving.
As far as good ways to die, inert gas asphyxiation is up there with “proper” lethal injection (i.e. with a commercial euthanasia drug), opiate overdose, or just anesthetizing the being and doing whatever gets the job done.
Nitrogen can cause a “high” (aka nitrogen narcosis), but this effect only occurs at high pressures. So it is only a practical concern for divers, because they have to breathe high pressure air. Some divers replace the nitrogen in their tanks with other gases to avoid it.
It is unrelated to asphyxiation, and can occur even when the lungs are properly exchanging oxygen and CO2. It is a poorly understood direct interaction between high pressure nitrogen and the brain that does not occur at atmospheric pressure.
Correct. Extremely different thing.
Also, despite what they say in fight club, oxygen does not get you high either.
Nitrous oxide however…
When I did my deep diving certification one of the things they got us to do was try and do maths of varying complexity (compared to previously doing it on the surface). I didn’t feel high at all, but most of us had slower response times and more errors at depth, apparently as a side effect of the increased nitrogen. Pretty wild.
IIRC the hypoxia
“high”panic reaction is from an elevated level of CO2 - that’s the evolved mechanism by which humans detect they’re in a bad place for breathing. Not absence of O2.Edit: Correction: Hypoxia alone gets you high just before you keel over. It’s the CO2 buildup that activates your body’s panic reactions.
This is how I would want to go. Look up BBC Horizon 2008 How to Kill a Human Being. Explains everything you need to know. Seems like states don’t want to do it because people wouldn’t suffer during execution. Maybe things have changed since then.
Is it really an execution if there is no suffering? /s
Seems like states don’t want to do it because people wouldn’t suffer during execution
To me it seems like they’re trying to make the process more acceptable to the public so they can delight in more of them.
Seems like states don’t want to do it because people wouldn’t suffer during execution.
Is lethal injection painful?
yes, they paralyze you then inject you with poison
Being poisoned isn’t necessarily painful. What poison do they inject?
Here’s an article about it: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection
It was a severe form of a condition called pulmonary edema, which can induce the feeling of suffocation or drowning.
I don’t understand how we have problems with people dying in the streets from opioid overdoses or mixing benzos and alcohol, but the government can’t find a way to kill people without drowning them in their own blood.
Because the cruelty is the point. Nitrogen asphyxiation has been known for a long time. The Sarco suicide pod uses it because it’s a peaceful death. The whole reason it hasn’t been adopted is because they want the condemned to suffer.
Folks who are confused by this, your body doesn’t detect when you’re low on oxygen, only when you have too much carbon dioxide. That’s why exhaling while holding your breath helps you hold your breath longer (to an extent). Nitrogen doesn’t caused the sensation of suffocating while still depriving you of oxygen.
I disagree with capital punishment but have always wondered about this for stuff like assisted suicide.
That’s the thing, we all have to compromise. I don’t support it either, but if something unethical happens, and people still want to keep supporting it, we have to at least convince them to use the “best version” of said thing so it’s at least as humane as we can make it possibly be. I’m shocked we still continue to use these complicated and ancient methods of execution that have questionable reliability or ethics when it comes to suffering.
It’d be interesting to see how it would be used for AS for sure!
Over this summer I’ve been trying to break my record for holding breath underwater. 2:13 was best I could muster but in my experimentation, after slow and steady initial breathing and reduced muscle usage, inhaling one giant breath at the end and holding definitely let’s me stay under longer. This is better until the CO2 saturation of my lungs equals the saturation in the blood. Then, for whatever reason, slowly trickling the air out buys a little more time. This probably helps calm and fool the brain into thinking you’re desaturating.
Unless you have COPD. That’s why’s it’s dangerous to give high flow O2 to people with COPD.
If ever I would need to be killed, this would be my preferred method of leaving the earth.
Happy to see them try it, even though I am against executing people.
With hypoxia, you get euphoria prior to death. No suffering, no pain, just a little high to send you off this earth.
Should do it to animals too.
Indeed. I have read that the reason we don’t is because it takes too long.
That’s why they use CO2 asphyxiation, but in my opinion, that’s torture.
CO2 asphyxiation is extremely unpleasant. That is absolutely torture, and it is not in any way shape or form an ethical way to euthanize anything.
I’m definitely against the death penalty but if they’re gonna do it anyway this seems like one of the better options
theres actually a thing called nitrogen narcosis. while i still find states that use the death penalty abhorrent, its one of the nicer ways to go. while breathing a pure oxygen-defficient gas you also dont have a feeling that you are suffocating since you can breathe off carbon dioxide just fine. thats why exit bags are a thing in the first place
You can’t breathe carbon dioxide like you can breathe oxygen. Nitrogen works well because it’s soluble in the body and will replace oxygen, meaning aside from the mental effects, you don’t notice it.
CO2 doesn’t work the same, though. It won’t replace oxygen and will produce a feeling of suffocation.
That’s what he’s saying. You can exhale the CO2 and breathe in the nitrogen.
CO2 is what causes the burning sensation in the lungs when you hold your breath too long.
Not entirely true. CO2 won’t reabsorb but the inability to get rid of what’s already there will cause it to build up. It’s the presence of excess CO2 that causes the body’s suffocation response. This is why people sleep right through being suffocated by CO and why they theorize that nitrogen will have the same response
for diving it is quite different though.
Nitrogen high starts (with normal pressurized air) at around 40m depths which means 5bar pressure or roughly 4bar partial pressure for the nitrogen. It then starts getting into your synapses partly blocking them.
even with 100% pure nitrogen at normal pressure you just get 1bar. So you wont get high from it.
Content warning >!linking to a method of suicide!<
Not going out on a morphine high?
Right? Like why can’t the lethal injection be an overdose of fentanyl or carfentanyl? It’d be cheap and easy. I’m not advocating for the death penalty, just wondering why it isn’t that way.
Because the cretins that believe in the death penalty, and they are cretins if they believe in the death penalty, want the process to be as horrific as it can be while not shattering the illusion (for them) that it isn’t barbaric. They don’t want it to be quick and they definitely don’t want it to be painless.
Biggest reason is probably that it will be a lot easier to administer. Injection when you can’t used a medical profession is kind of a pain for everyone involved.
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Have you been to America lately?
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It’s Alabama…
They are, that’s just the truth.
Well, in Alabama and in in some states (cough, Texas) they probably are I’m afraid.
Let him rot in prison.
ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
That’s how it should be. But as with most things, it comes down to money. It’s cheaper to execute.
It’s really not cheaper in practice, the legal hurdles for the death penalty are more expensive to overcome than just keeping someone locked up for life.
It might get cheaper if you’re executing in volume, like thousands of people, but then we’d be looking at a whole other sort of problems (like “how did we turn into China?”)
It’s not cheaper to execute. It’s financially and morally very expensive.
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The justice system isn’t perfect and you can’t roll back dying
Also I feel like a goverment that is allowed to kill their citizens is a government with too much power.
Sure sure, but the comment above wanted the person to rot in jail for the rest of their existence. Which is why I mentioned a very specified a situation where the crime is clear.
You’re arguing for cases where an innocent person may be found guilty - which is a very valid argument. I’m trying to figure out this crowd that wants people to suffer forever while they won’t even think of that person again in their life, besides maybe pay taxes to keep them alive.
to rot in jail for the rest of their existence
Because later on, if they were found to be actually innocent - the person rotting in jail can be released and compensated (to whatever extent false imprisonment can be compensated).
If they were executed, it’s over. The injustice can’t be remediated in any way.
assuming the person is truly guilty
That’s the part where it falls to bits for me.
Although you could allow people to choose euthanasia. Although even there it should be carried out privately rather than some ghoulish ceremony.
Bring back the gladiator fights! I want sand, blood, and tigers!
All you have to do is look at the times the government has got it wrong on convictions of people who turned out innocent to realize maybe the government shouldn’t make the decision to kill people.
Look up the innocence project.
Capital punishment is government sanctioned killing. Outside of war, the government should not have the power to kill anyone.
For these people, death is also the easy way out. Prison time is harder.
Not to mention cost. The complexity, finality, and litigation drive cost through the roof and make it much more expensive than life in prison.
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
Surgical tech here… why not just use Propofol? It’s the shit we use to put people to sleep for surgery.
It kicks in FAST - when the anesthesiologist pushes that stuff, it can literally take like 5-10 seconds for the patients to go unconscious.
So… for the death penalty, hit em with the normal dosage to put them to sleep, then once they’re confirmed unconscious, push the rest of the bottle… or a liter of gasoline… or chuck em out the window; it doesn’t matter, as they’ll be 100% unaware of the actual method of death.
Edit - turns out there’s a lot of good reasons we don’t just use Propofol - see comments below. Thanks for the insight, all!
The real answer is that the makers of Propofol specifically don’t want you to use it to kill people.
Furthermore, if the US does use Propofol to execute anyone it will likely find itself suffering a shortage of Propofol to use as an anaesthetic in future.
Because the people selling it don’t want to deal with the association with lethal injections
anesthesiologist
There you have it, qualified medical professionals refuse (and are not allowed to anyway because of the oath) to participate in executions. So the people administring whatever concoction is made are not medically trained nor usually even particularily knowledgable on the subject. And yes, this has caused a series of botched executions, to the extent that the most bloodthirsty states are looking at smimpler ways to execute. Hence this aricle.
Because using your drug to kill people isn’t the best way to convince the public is perfectly safe. There would be a hundred TikToks talking about how anesthesiologists want to murder you with propofol and then claim you died accidentally on the operating table. Who are you going to believe, actual “doctors” or highly qualified TikTok influencers?
Yeah, no drug company wants to deal with that. That’s why governments have had difficulty sourcing these drugs and instead have been resorting to black market dealers.
Because the idea of it being a punishment, rather than remediation or simply mitigation, looms over all North American discussions about sentencing.
If they aren’t miserable then it’s not a punishment.
In the case of Propofol they did want to use it but were basically banned by the drug company.
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Manson and his cronies did not exactly die in obscurity. They had, and still have, groupies.
But… the whole reason we are having this discussion is because people are trying to make the process less miserable in their final moments.
Just imagining the reverse, if they used propofol commonly for executions and then you go for a surgery and the doctor informs you that you’ll be getting the same stuff they use for executions, but don’t worry it’s a milder dose
I mean, they DO use midazolam and the same paralytics for lethal injection that are also commonly used for anesthesia, just in a lower dose.
“Smith was one of two men paid $1,000 each to murder Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her preacher husband, Charles Sennett Sr., who was in debt and wanted to collect life insurance money.”
Hold on, so why is he being executed? He wasn’t the one who ordered the murder. It seems like lots of other people request murders but those people aren’t sentenced to death.
Because he accepted money in exchange to brutally beat and stabbed a person to death. “Just following orders,” has never been an acceptable excuse for an individual to commit a crime, but especially when it’s not an order in a military hierarchy, it’s payment and a voluntary agreement. Fuck him.
Sennet Sr. committed suicide the moment the police started to investigate him. That’s why he’s not about to be executed.
I don’t think that was the argument being made. The argument, to me, is why sentenced to death instead of some other sentence. And, were the others that are also part of this crime sentenced.
The article doesn’t seem to say anything about what happened to the others that are involved. Focused a lot on the execution method.
Sounds like the guy just did this for the money so I also don’t understand why he’s being sentenced to death. Should just be prison time. But, I don’t have all the facts here.
He’s sentenced to death because he committed a capital murder in a state with the death penalty and a jury found him guilty. “I did it for money” is not exactly a legal defense. An innocent person was still killed, and arguably doing it for money is worse. Fuck him.
The other guy involved in the killing has already been executed, over ten years ago. It’s a well documented case and took me about a minute of Googling to figure out this guy isn’t particularly being singled out for death and the other got a lighter sentence.
I personally don’t believe in the death penalty, but also if he didn’t want to be executed for murder, he shouldn’t have committed murder in the deep south.
“Preacher.”
Right, bro is just caught up in the rat race same as the rest of us
To be very, very clear, I do not support the death penalty but the rat race isn’t an excuse to kill someone.
I don’t think he was trying to find excuses.
Watching the murder states scramble for new ways to murder as they run out of unethical people willing to sell them murder supplies has been interesting.
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Pro death
Always the conservatives trying to innovate on how to kill people.
because the medical companies they got their lethal injections from decided they’d rather not be associated with governmental killing.
then the foreign countries they bought from decided the same. so now they have to get creative.
Personally, I’d like to see a 500t press option: literally just drop a 500t weight on me from a 30’ height. By the time my brains register any sensation they’ll be strawberry jelly squishing out the sides of the press plate.
This isn’t a new innovation and is actually aware of the science. I think, however, conservative elected officials will insist on continuing Capital Punishment and the world is forced to work with or in many cases against them.
Ok, but bear with me here, because for real, this is how I want to go, and how I plan to put down my fowl when they get too old to live comfortably, because there’s no stress involved to taint the meat, and I can feel comfortable with myself for giving them a good life with free roam, and a good end.
It’s incredibly humane. You feel nothing and don’t know you are suffocating. If you’ve ever breathed helium, you know what nitrogen feels like - literally nothing. This happened to multiple individuals in space because nitrogen is not flammable, and is why they now use 6% co2 in non-oxygenated spaces.
The body does not care if it has oxygen, that’s hard to test for biologically because oxygen is highly reactive, what it does test for is buildup of co2. As long as you can breathe out the co2, your body knows nothing.
So if they are going to kill other humans, this is the way to go. I don’t agree with doing that non-voluntarily, but if it’s going to happen this is at least humane.
Something I’ve been thinking about: for the victim, does it actually matter if it’s nitrogen or a well-aimed bullet/axe/guillotine? For the onlookers, sure the nitrogen looks a lot cleaner, but instant death is painless too.
I’d argue, yes it matters.
Bullet might not be as well aimed as expected, considering some of the firing squad have blanks, and most of them probably don’t really want to be there.
Beheadings are reported to result in animated heads… and I would assume something like a waterfall of pain as the nerves from the body are severed but the brain, where consciousness lives, goes on for a bit yet. It might be quick, but it doesn’t seem pleasant.
Electric chairs, just look them up, same with lethal injection problems… any “justice death” is basically torture.
At least they can’t fuck up neutral gas asphyxiation. It’s either deadly or you sleep through it and wake up with a nasty headache.
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No, that’s not even remotely the same thing as inert gas asphyxiation.
When you get no oxygen at all, you pass out very quickly, you don’t suffer like you do with low levels of oxygen over extended periods.
Don’t fear monger please.
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Alabama:
we’re innovating! :D
Everyone else:
bro what the fuck
“Wat? It’s just unusual it’s not cruel y’all!”–Alabama, probably.
I am by no means pro death penalty, but I prefer this over the lethal injection. It’s a very painful and horrifying way to go and not at all like the drugs they give someone for medical euthanasia, while suffocating on nitrogen is actually relatively painless.
How about fuck the death penalty instead
Oh yeah I agree, I just would rather that if it’s going to be a thing over lethal injections.
