
A Man in India Is Selling States Illegally Imported Execution Drugs - coloneltcb
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismcdaniel/this-is-the-man-in-india-who-is-selling-states-illegally-imp#.quLyegYNJ
======
scintill76
> The drug Nebraska purchased, sodium thiopental, is an out-of-date anesthetic
> that stopped being used in executions after the sole FDA-approved
> manufacturer quit making it to keep it away from death penalty states.

In the recent climate of stories like pharmas price-gouging, it's nice to hear
they aren't always greedy. (Edit: They were somewhat coerced by Italy, where
they produce it[2]. I think EU export law forbids it now too. Still, they
could probably produce it in the US at a worthwhile premium if they wanted to,
but it appears they don't.)

> Other death penalty states have turned to different drugs, but Nebraska had
> few options because the state’s protocol calls for sodium thiopental.

I don't know how that came about, but it makes me wonder if this would be an
effective way to weaken a law you don't like: compromise on a legal
implementation that depends on something that won't last forever. I guess it's
not unique, though; it's like how the debt ceiling is only bumped up a bit, or
PATRIOT Act provisions extended a couple of years at a time.

> Changing it to a more modern execution drug would have required public
> meetings, and that would take time that Ricketts and his DOC did not have.

It sounds like Gov. Ricketts' ego and legacy rest on maintaining the death
penalty in his state. The Atlantic[0] covered how the state legislature
abolished it, and the multiple ways the government sought to twist law to do
it anyway. The governor and his father personally financed $300k on a petition
drive to suspend the new law[1]. Must be nice to have so much money and
nothing better to do than try to obtain the right to legally kill strangers.

[0]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/a-govern...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/a-governor-
threatens-to-execute-prisoners-out-of-spite/394949/) [1]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/19/nebraska_d...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/19/nebraska_death_penalty_petition_suspends_new_law_triggers_november_2016.html)
[2] [http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=175550&p=irol-
ne...](http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=175550&p=irol-
newsArticle_print&ID=1518610)

~~~
frozenport
The market for lethal drugs perhaps outweighs the regulatory costs.

~~~
knorby
What's sad about that is that there are plenty of lethal drugs that are
perfectly legal and normally regulated, but they aren't part of the must-
cause-pain execution method used. Terminally ill patients seeking medically
assisted suicide take a lethal dose of a sleeping aide, which is pleasant.

~~~
jakejake
This is unfortunately not true. If you do some research into it, you'll
discover that it's not easy for terminally ill patients to end their life.
Contrary to what most people think, sleeping pills are not reliable, nor are
many legal drugs. In many cases overdoses of these drugs leaves the person in
an even worse state because they can cause severe distress, the body rejects
them and vomits them out, they don't act quickly enough before the person is
discovered and resuscitated. They can cause brain damage or physical damage
without death. Terminally ill patients often aren't in good enough shape to
even climb to the top of a building and throw themselves off. Like you said,
it is extremely sad.

The drugs required for execution, on the other hand, are used because they
appear to be the most reliable, peaceful and expedient method.

You can read more about it at
[http://www.peacefulpillhandbook.com/](http://www.peacefulpillhandbook.com/)
\- there are many terminally ill people who are trying to get their hands on
these drugs.

~~~
MichaelGG
That site doesn't seem to have publicly available info. But wouldn't mizadolam
(just to calm you - any benzo I suppose) + a good dose of opiates (say, 1g of
diamorphine for a naive user) work well? So long you like opiates (aren't one
of those that gets really sick), it wouldn't be anything but amazing. And if
you underdose, you just nod in and out for a while and try again (assuming no
rescue).

If there are rescue teams coming in then I suppose that wouldn't work and
you'd just wake up in Narcan hell. What are your choices then?

~~~
refurb
Apparently midazolam isn't a good choice, they tried it in combination with
another drug during an execution and it took forever for the guy to die.

I'd suggest nitrogen asphyixiation. From what i've read, most folks who
accidentally get exposed to 100% nitrogen atmospheres, don't even see it
coming. Probably not that great for the execution witnesses as i'm sure you'd
thrash about beforr dying.

~~~
KMag
Passing out from breathing pure helium for too long is slightly pleasant and I
imagine nitrogen would be similar. Though my friend said my foot was
twitching. (I regained consciousness right when he figured out I wasn't joking
around and had really passed out.)

In my misspent youth, I was once helping a friend with a project involving a
couple of weather balloons full of helium. When he was done and we were
cleaning up, I was playing around with breathing pure helium. One breath of
pure helium was fine, and I followed it up with a second breath of pure
helium, figuring I would feel hypoxia start to set in. It sets in fast and is
actually euphoric. I remember saying "whoah" and realizing I was about to pass
out, and I remember hearing my head hit the rubber floor I was sitting on. (I
did sit down, since I realized there was a danger of my passing out.)

EDIT: I should point out that I used to be in favor of the death penalty, but
now feel that it is usually little more than state-sponsored vengeance. I
would like to see a cultural shift in America away from all forms of vengeance
, and legitimizing vengeance against murders is worse than helping the
families of murder victims realize that vengeance is neither necessary nor
sufficient for closure.

If we as a society are determined to kill murderers, my experience suggests
that breathing pure nitrogen would be one of the least barbaric ways to do so.

------
refurb
_Sodium thiopental is not used in the U.S. anymore, but it’s still widely used
in India and in parts of the developing world as an anesthetic._

That's not true. Sodium thiopental is still used in the US, the challenge is
that the drug makers are refusing to sell it for executions.

------
gweinberg
I will never understand why people seem to think it is more humane to keep a
man in a cage until he dies of old age than just to kill him and be done with
it.

~~~
GauntletWizard
Given the choice between a reasonably-long prison sentence and euthanasia, I'd
take the latter. I cannot imagine that I would want to meet the man I'd be
after twenty years in 'the can', even in a rehabilitation-focused country, let
alone the US.

Maybe Aaron had a point.

~~~
MichaelGG
I'm sure this is true for some people. But humans tend to adapt their levels
of happiness fairly rapidly, even when they predict they would be extremely
unhappy. For instance, many paralyzed folks end up feeling not as bad as they
would have thought. In a decent prison, it's quite plausible that you might
adjust rather rapidly.

Still, forcing someone to continue to exist is cruel and they should have the
option to opt-out, after a cool-down period and counseling and other
safeguards.

------
Retr0spectrum
A surprisingly well written article, by buzzfeed standards. I always thought
of buzzfeed as a clickbait silo, but that appears to have changed at some
point.

~~~
sehr
From a Popular Mechanics article about how the New York Times works:

 _The Times is occasionally mocked for its staid and deliberate pace, but it
is in moments like these that the seriousness with which it approaches every
aspect of its operation becomes clearest. There are few organizations with the
resources to spend such time and consideration on stories that aren 't primed
to go viral—though search-engine optimization and other tricks of the digital
age do receive plenty of consideration. _

_When the conversation turns to a vivid story from Liberia, where Ebola has
overtaken a particular neighborhood in Monrovia, one editor proudly reports
that she believes the Times is the only outlet with a reporter on the ground,
which makes everyone happy until another editor says, "I think BuzzFeed
actually has somebody there." There is momentary silence._

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-
ne...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-new-york-
times-works/)

------
jqm
Real question: First they had the electric chair, now exotic mixes of drugs.
Whatever happened to the gallows? How come we have to do this (if we do
actually need to do this... I don't know about that part) with fancy expensive
tech?

~~~
rdtsc
Because we are a schizophrenic society. We don't know what we want.

* We want to rehabilitate but we also want to punish.

* We want to be humane but we also want to kill. So we keep switching around our methods until we got to these drug coctails. Which some first paralize the person, so when dosage is off, they could be in a horrible agony, but you know, they are not thrashing around making unpleasant sounds, so the sensibilities of those watching are not disturbed.

* We want to set an example, so others think twice about commiting heinous crimes, yet we don't televise or publisize executions. Heck, I am all for fishing or cutting bait. If we are going to be tough on crime and hope to scare the bejesus of future criminals by these harsh punishments, we should put them on evening news. You know, kids come home from school, everyone eats dinner, watch an execution (with frequent commercial breaks -- "Buy Tide! For a cleaner, fresher tomorrow"), and then everyone goes to bed.

* We say it is not about revenge and we use euphemisms like "justice" and "closure" instead, but it actually is about revenge.

------
ChuckMcM
Buzzfeed surprise aside, since the states are really in a bind on getting
these drugs, it is in their interest to ask few questions and not look too
closely at the answers. Which is pretty sad, the folks who have tried to
prevent executions are at risk for making executions more gruesome by the
state using drugs that aren't up to the task. I don't know if they can make
this situation any worse.

~~~
Frondo
Another solution: the states can stop killing people.

~~~
wtbob
But that would be a miscarriage of justice. To leave the men responsible for,
say, robbing and stabbing to death five people at a quiet bar is grotesque.

(Yes, it's also a miscarriage of justice to wrongly execute the innocent—and
to wrongly imprison the innocent, and to fail to execute those guilty of
certain crimes)

~~~
rdtsc
> To leave the men responsible for, say, robbing and stabbing to death five
> people at a quiet bar is grotesque.

And how would killing again unstab those 5 and bring them back from the dead?

~~~
wtbob
How would caging the murderers like animals for the next fifty years unstab
those 5 and bring them back from the dead? I don't see how yours is a relevant
objection.

