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Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen

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[–] derf82 141 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Cruel? Nitrogen asphyxiation is probably one of the most painless, gentle ways to go.

Your trigger that you can’t breathe is a buildup of carbon dioxide. But as you can still exhale, you feel no panic. You just slowly drift unconscious and die. I’d take it over most causes of death.

[–] dmonzel 53 points 1 year ago (71 children)

Execution is cruel, regardless of method.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm against the death penalty but if I ever murder a load of people then I'd like to be able able to freely choose death by nitrogen over a life in prison

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, the headline is just trying to get people to react.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There's a BBC documentary about it, I think this one:

How to Kill a Human Being

It's been a long time since I watched it, but I think the inert gas route is very pleasant. He even gets slightly high/happy from it.

Key takeaways:

  • there are surprisingly easy ways to kill people humanely.
  • many in the US doesn't want to kill prisoners humanely, they want it to hurt and be a punishment, not die in a euphoric high

edit: found it:

https://www.documentarytube.com/videos/how-to-kill-a-human-being-2/

Rendered unconcious within 15 seconds, dead within a minute.

In testing pigs would happily stick their heads in a space with pure nitrogen and munch on apples till they lost consciousness, fell over, then stick their heads back in the space with nitrogen to eat some more apples.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What kind of apples asking for a friend

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[–] captainlezbian 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well yeah if we wanted it to be happy and comfortable we’ve had morphine for over a century

[–] CurlyMoustache 4 points 1 year ago

Medical companies will not sell if they suspect it will be used to kill human beings. If they do, they might get banned in Europe

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/lethal-injection-pharma-kill-death-penalty/

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah, compared to injecting horrifically painful substances, I don't see why this is controversial.

[–] CrayonRosary 6 points 1 year ago

It's even better than that. Hypoxia causes feelings of euphoria! You get high, pass out, and die. It's the best way to go, IMO.

[–] Fedizen 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'd take a firing squad or an enormous hydraulic press tbh. If I were to be an innocent stuck with a death penalty I'd be happy to know somebody will have to clean up a messy pile of guts after my quick death.

The whole point of using gas or chemicals for the death isnt to make the punishment humane - the death penalty is not humane in any way - its to make it easier on the people doing the killing. No mess, no fuss.

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