US Executions Threaten Supply of Anaesthetic Used For Surgical Procedures

ananyo writes "Allen Nicklasson has had a temporary reprieve. Scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Missouri on 23 October, the convicted killer was given a stay of execution by the state's governor, Jay Nixon, on 11 October — but not because his guilt was in doubt. Nicklasson will live a while longer because one of the drugs that was supposed to be used in his execution — a widely used anesthetic called propofol — is at the center of an international controversy that threatens millions of U.S. patients, and affects the way that U.S. states execute inmates. Propofol, used up to 50 million times a year in U.S. surgical procedures, has never been used in an execution. If the execution had gone ahead, U.S. hospitals could have lost access to the drug because 90% of the U.S. supply is made and exported by a German company subject to European Union regulations that restrict the export of medicines and devices that could be used for capital punishment or torture. This is not the first time that the E.U.'s anti-death-penalty stance has affected the U.S. supply of anesthetics. Since 2011, a popular sedative called sodium thiopental has been unavailable in the United States. 'The European Union is serious,' says David Lubarsky, head of the anesthesiology department at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida. 'They've already shown that with thiopental. If we go down this road with propofol, a lot of good people who need anesthesia are going to be harmed.'"

Comments

Hangings

[JackieBrown]

We should just go back to hangings. It works for killing Nazis and war criminals.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just stop having government thugs murder people.

Re:Hangings

[mrvan]

I think it would be best to have a firing squad composed of the jury that found someone guilty and imposed the death penalty. If you have the guts to condemn someone to die, I think you should also have the guts to execute that penalty.

(and yes, I also think that every non-vegetarian should be willing to butcher an animal)

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not! Executions are as much a part of America as slave ownership.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

When the term "judge, jury, and executioner" is used, it's usually in a pejorative sense. Merging the latter two positions is a bad idea from a separation of power standpoint.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Butchering is gross. I wouldn't mind snapping its neck and hading it off to someone else to butcher, though.

Being grossed out by something doesn't constitute a moral imperative. I'm pretty grossed out by a woman's period but I still have sex with them.

Re:Hangings

[X0563511]

Nitrogen in a gas chamber is probably the most humane way to do it. You just... lose consciousness. There's no distress since carbon dioxide displacement still happens. This is why working with such gasses in an enclosed space always has those warnings etc.

Re:Hangings

[TheSpoom]

Pure rationality cannot trample human rights. That leads to... unsavory consequences. History is full of dictators who believe they have "purely rational" reasons for genocide.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pejorative because it implies greatly hastened judicial process, or a complete lack of it. There's nothing implicitly wrong with merging executioner with either of the other two, because the executioner has no judicial power anyway.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

>and yes, I also think that every non-vegetarian should be willing to butcher an animal

I believe that every animal rights nut should be denied any medication or surgical procedure that has been tested on animals...

Re:Hangings

[Firemouth]

I disagree with this because the role of a jury is to determine guilt. If what you propose were the case it may sway someone to vote not guilty even when it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt the person is guilty simply because they don't want to execute the sentence. I think that would be a miscarriage of justice. The jury's disposition to the punishment is irrelevant when determining guilt unless they're doing jury nullification, then they're just not following the law but for a different reason.

Besides, isn't it ultimately the Judge who determines the sentence, not the jury? Maybe it varies on the type of case and such but my point is the same.

I don't see any logical reasoning as to why someone who is determining guilt should have to be the one who executes the sentence. It's almost as if you're trying to punish the judge / jury for making a decision of guilty. It wouldn't have any positive impact that I can see and only negative ones.

Re:Hangings

[sycodon]

So if you sentence the guy to thirty years, should the jury have to house, feed and guard him?

Re:Hangings

[realityimpaired]

It's essentially allowing said criminals to continue to victimize society by leeching taxpayer dollars that could be spent elsewhere on more deserving causes. Execution is an alternative that is less humane in most cases, but it also permanently ends any further exploitation of society by those who can't be reformed and can't live in said society.

In most countries where capital punishment has been banned, it was done so because there were too many cases where people were later exonerated after their execution. Let's skip the argument over the ethics of executions as they're done in the US, though, because that is a way to a very vitriolic exchange.

The US is a strange case, though. You have an enormous prison population as a proportion of your general population. Money becomes an issue when such a large percentage of the population is incarcerated, but when you have a more reasonable justice system (and a social security net which removes a large percentage of the impetus for crime... insert obligatory link: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/24/breaking-bad-canada-comic-health_n_3984793.html ), the increased cost of keeping somebody alive for the duration of their prison sentence is still reasonable.

Re:Hangings

[SJHillman]

Until you get people willing to convict someone just for the chance to pull the trigger.

Re:Hangings

[MBGMorden]

So you're going to give a bunch of people who may or may not know how to fire and/or aim a firearm the job of executing someone? When half of them miss and the other half have bad hits its going to be mighty bad when the prisoner is on the ground screaming and dying slowly.

PS I've never understood the vegetarian quip that more people would be vegetarians if they saw and/or participated in the process of butchering. Vegetarianism is a rather new fad, and until relatively recently most people WERE pretty involved in the butchering process and there was no mass avoidance of meat eating.

Personally having been hunting since I was 7 (and killed my first deer at 9) I've been pretty involved with the butchering process and if you grow up with it its no big thing. I still kill a few deer per year (usually between 2 and 4) and skin/gut all of them myself. Still love eating meat. Heck when I see a cow grazing the first thing I think of is steak and get hungry.

Re:Hangings

[kruach aum]

There is a difference between rationality and thinking you're rational. Rationality is what has given us human rights in the first place.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

or just get rid of the anesthetic. those assholes deserve to die a painful death.

Including the ones who were later found to have not actually committed the crimes they were sentenced to death for committing?

I have no problem with the concept of executing someone in certain situations. The problem I have is being absolutely certain that the accused actually DID commit the crime- even one case of wrongful execution is too many.

As for how expensive it is to execute vs. imprison for life: The fact of the matter is that society always has to pay a cost in order to remove someone from society, if they aren't willing to pay the cost then the person shouldn't be removed in the first place. We shouldn't be looking at saving money at the risk of killing people who don't deserve it.

So all in all I DO think we need to get rid of the death penalty entirely, but not because of any moral objection to execution. Yes, it would really suck if you spent 50 years in jail before being exonerated, but at least you still have a chance to pick up some of your life. If you're dead- you're wormfood, and a posthumous apology doesn't do jack shit.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Or, you know, join the rest of the civilised world and abolish capital punishment.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

Some times people deserve capital punishment. I am not saying in most of the cases that we do it they deserve it, but someone who is an un-remorseful mass murderer should be put to death. The tax payer should not be liable to keep them alive, or let them free to kill again.

Re:Hangings

[interkin3tic]

You can get interesting responses from people who are staunchly pro-death penalty hearing this the first time. The first is an immediate rejection "It couldn't possibly cost that much." Followed by a statement that it shouldn't cost that much to kill someone. "You could just use an empty syringe, that is like $5."

Upon finding out that it's because of the legal fees, you get people saying "Well then they shouldn't be allowed to have as many retrials."

Not saying those immediate responses say anything relevant to the conversation, everyone suffers from cognitive dissonance and few people are open minded. And most people who are pro death penalty aren't really so because they think it's cheaper. Just it's amusing to me that the first suggestions in favor of death penalty as part of the justice system are "Well, I could kill someone pretty cheap" and "How about we give people fewer chances to prove their innocence before we kill them."

Re:Hangings

[MysteriousPreacher]

Every society in the world has established that (at least some) rights can be removed from criminals, with due process. If their right to freedom can be removed, there's no reason their right to life can't be as well (in extreme circumstances at least).

The acceptance of removing rights isn't itself a justification for any particular action. Each proposed action should stand on its own merits. We know that custodial sentences can to some extent be corrected for when a convict is later cleared of the capital crime. One can't give someone back 10 years of life, but efforts can be made to make the remainder of their life as pleasant as it can be under the circumstances. The death penalty is kind of final. It's difficult to appeal the sentence when one would be too dead to show-up in court. Appeals can be made prior to the execution - we know that's pretty common, and certainly some people are reprieved, but once dead there's no going back. The best they can hope for is that a surviving friend or relative will clear their name postmortem. That is a pretty big difference.

It's a moral choice to make, and that's fine. But to argue that executions are some absurdity that have no place in a reasonable society is unfair.

We have to ask ourselves a question: What is capital punishment achieving that a custodial sentence wouldn't?

Is it about protecting the public? If so, how are they any more protected by this death than they would be if the person served their life behind bars? Maybe the protection comes from its deterrent factor? If so, is this worth the risk of executing people who are innocent of the crime for which they've been sentenced to death? Is this a utilitarian argument? Better to have 1 innocent person die if it prevents 100 murders? None of that seems reasonable to me. Are there better ways to reduce crime that won't involve executions?

Is it about vengeance for the wronged? If so, then this is a broken judicial system. The law should never have this in mind.

Re:Hangings

[Politburo]

The right to freedom can be removed and restored. The right to life cannot. Seems like a pretty good reason to me.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Well, I am not saying mass murderers should walk free, obviously. The two strongest arguments against the death penalty, in my opinion, are

-- There will be always be some percentage of cases where the verdict turns out to be wrong, and you have murdered an innocent human being (in many cases exactly the crime you set out to punish)

-- Life imprisonment, while costly for society, seems to me the harsher punishment. There's ways you can relieve the burden on society, too.

If you get it wrong there's someone left to apologise to and compensate. If not, they get what they deserve.

Re:Hangings

[interkin3tic]

TFA has a very good point at the very end. An anesthesiologist points out that these procedures need to be foolproof enough for guards with nothing more than a high school education to do. If someone is dosed with anesthetic, pretty much any way of killing them is going to probably be painless, and meets at least some people's definition of humane. And the poison is presumably well tested and super effective.

With nitrogen and no anesthetic, that's a bit more complex than I'd trust a meathead with. Making sure the oxygen is completely replaced in the room, and making sure a person is dead by a monitor rather than just in a coma or nearly dead before you open up the room and let oxygen back in.

Finally, you mean painless. Humane? I don't know. It's going to have to be a sizeable room too, since you don't want prisoners freaking out due to claustrophobia. In addition to that being a cruel way to kill someone, there are security concerns. A prisoner is already going to be on edge when they know they're literally about to die. If they have an irrational fear of suffocation or enclosed spaces, they might try to hurt someone or themselves. That last one might seem like an odd concern, but someone tearing at their throat in their final hysterical minutes shouldn't meet anyone's definition of humane, and if the room is filled with oxygen, no guards can go back in to secure the prisoner. Also, drifting off to sleep seems more humane than suffocating, even if you're not physically in pain.

(Disclaimer: I'm extremely anti-death-penalty.)

Re:Hangings

[fustakrakich]

War is real mass murder. When do we get to hang the people who start and sustain them?

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

Incorrect. Judges determine the law and undisputed facts, even in the case of juries. Juries only judge disputed "facts". Juries can go outside of the law and will typically not be held accountable because of the above, but the judge of a case is like the moderator. He will decide what issues go to the jury and what do not based on the law.

Also incorrect. Juries dont typically do sentencing, again the judge does that. In addition in the few cases they do if the feel capital punishment is unconscionable they also can do life in prison instead. They have options other than a moral obligation to acquit.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

The extra cost is in typical appeals, which even people without the death penalty can do but tend not to. They can find a away to lower that cost. The cost of the actual execution is a fraction of the cost to keep someone in prison for life.

Re:Hangings

[Luckyo]

It's not about the reasoning. It's about the personal pleasure drawn by executioner and those supporting the act from suffering of another.

Basically it's a legalized form of extreme violence.

Re:Hangings

[SuricouRaven]

Nitrogen aspixiation is an almost ideal way. It's cheap, very reliable (Survival rate: Zero), needs no people of medical skill, and uses only a commonly available mass-produced gas.

The only problem is that many death penalty proponents consider it insufficiently inhumane. It's actually a pleasant way to die: A period of euphoria, then unconsciousness, then death. So it doesn't do much to satisfy the desire for collective vengence.

Re:Hangings

[jedidiah]

> life sentence means something between 10 and 30 years,

There is nothing "civilized" about this kind of doublespeak.

Re:Hangings

[jedidiah]

There's a lot of history between us and Plato. Their fads don't necessarily have any relationship to our fads.

The idea of vegetarianism as some sort of moral crusade probably at the very least requires a society rich enough to support such a vanity. For everyone else, it's eat what you can get your hands on as you don't have the luxury of being picky.

Re:Hangings

[Penguinisto]

What are they going to do? Throw the lifer in jail?

Nope, but they can impose even harsher penalties. Two that come to mind?

* removal of privileges (bed linens, commissary privileges, rec yard, etc)
* restricted solitary confinement (23 hours a day alone in a cell, one hour to exercise, shower, whatever in an isolated small confinement area)
* loss of communication rights except to legal counsel (no more letters to/from home, etc).

In some states, it could also mean being sent to hard labor for up to 16 hours each day, every day until you behave (e.g. Arkansas, which has prison farms).

Even a 'lifer' has things that he fears.

lethal injection is for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a country/state that is very proud of (1) their inalienable right to own and wear guns, and (2) insists on killing people found guilty in a very imperfect process, should have the guts to just shoot those people. Executions aren't supposed to be nice, so just get over the squeamishness and just shoot the buggers.

Why not hemp rope, made in USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't understand why people are obsessed with "humane" executions.

FFS you're killing a guy, and it's supposed to be a punishment.
Let's just go back to a short rope and a tall tree at sunrise.

Home grown.

[grub]

They do make bullets in the USA, right?

Re:Hint

[i kan reed]

I don't think you've noticed, but we are a barbaric nation, by-and-large. Less educated, more violent, and more plutocratic than comparable nations. Our barbarism in our justice system isn't a mysterious artifact of unknown origin, it's a reflection of a larger anti-intellectual culture.

We're All Guily

[macromorgan]

How does killing killers make us any better then the killers themselves?

Re:We're All Guily

[Immerman]

It doesn't. The justice system has nothing to do with us being "better" than anyone else, it exists to
(1) interrupt the cycle of reprisals that "code of honor" systems create("An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"), by delegating judgement and punishment to a third party held blameless for actions committed in the line of duty.
(2) discourage future crime through a combination of making an example of criminals caught to dissuade others
(3) rehabilitate, imprison, or eliminating those who demonstrated a willingness to break the law to prevent repeat offenses

(1) requires that the punishments inflicted be sufficient to prevent the wronged individuals from taking justice into their own hands. Obviously if the crime is particularly heinous or the wronged often inclined to violence that may set the bar rather high.
(2) requires that punishments be sufficiently unpleasant that people who believe they probably won't get caught still don't think it's worth the risk.
(3) killing someone is the most permanent method to make sure they never commit another crime - the largest problem being that you can't release a falsely convicted person from death.

Re:We're All Guily

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they were given a fair trial before.

Are we still talking about the U.S.A.? Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody is given a fair trial there. You have to buy a fair trial at considerable expense, or accept the "plea deal" which basically considers you guilty, or get off worse for the prosecutor throwing the book at you, and without a really expensive lawyer, more will stick than with the deal. If you are really rich or poor, you are not guilty or guilty, respectively. In the middle range, there is some correlation between guilt and verdict, but you'll have to pay heavily to end on the non-guilty side.

"Fair" is something different.

Re:We're All Guily

[Jiro]

Does locking someone up in jail make us better than kidnappers? Pr fining them any better than thieves?

As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

Maybe it's time for the US to take the hint and stop this barbaric and medieval practice?

Seriously, why does it not bother more Americans that by having the death penalty they find themselves in the illustrious company of countries such as Libya, Sudan, China, Iran, Iraq and North Korea (the "Axis of Evil") and Syria?

Re:As good a time as any

[sI4shd0rk]

Vengeance seems to be a top priority for some reason. And as someone else pointed out, it's hypocritical how some who claim to want small government also say that the government should have the power to murder people who've already been imprisoned; I can't think of a much bigger sign of "big government" than that.

Re:As good a time as any

[gstoddart]

Vengeance seems to be a top priority for some reason.

So, it's angry Christians bent on vengeance then? Because I'm not sure who else is -- god must be so proud, it seems like the bible belt is most keen on executions and vengeance. I thought he'd reserved that for himself.

And as someone else pointed out, it's hypocritical how some who claim to want small government also say that the government should have the power to murder people who've already been imprisoned

They only really want the parts they disagree with smaller. Some of the rest (like military spending and spying) they seem to want to increase.

Re:As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

you are confused on what is barbaric.

Not at all. Human beings have no moral authority to kill other human beings. To do it anyway, premeditated and intentionally, when there is no immediate danger to anyone else, is barbaric. It's what barbarians do. You are lowering yourself to the level of the very people you are punishing.

for example, child molesters and rapists and murderers get out of prison and commit their crimes again.

So lock them up for the rest of their lives. It's cheaper too.

putting down a monster is not barbaric,

They are not monsters, they are human beings. You may be able to lull yourself into acceptance by demonising human beings and pretending that you're in a fairy story, but I don't think that is fair or productive.

it is the merciful thing to do

You are confused on what is merciful.

In addition, you are ignoring the fact that many of these "monsters" of yours turn out to have been perfectly innocent. Fuck you for being perfectly OK with calling them monsters and taking away their lives after years of psychological torture, destroying the lives of their friends and family in the process. And fuck the US for doing it.

Re:As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

We don't kill people for the same reasons as those countries.

That's hardly relevant. The point is that you kill people, not what your rationalisations are for killing people.

The death penalty is up to the states.

No, the death penalty is up to the American people. Apparently most of them are fine with it. In addition, it doesn't have to be up to the states. The federal government could outlaw it (even if it takes changing the constitution). Apparently they are fine with it too.

The reason capital punishment is outlawed in Europe is because all of the countries together (through various European institutions such as the European Union) decided that it was against basic human rights and should not be allowed. If Europe could do it, then so can the US.

Well, it is Germany, after all...

[RedCharlie]

If I had to excuse any one country for being squeamish about how its chemical products are used, it would be Germany. (But maybe Gov Nixon could ask them if they had any leftover Zyklon B hanging around...I bet that stuff doesn't go bad...)

Re:Hint

[CanHasDIY]

no, barbaric is letting monsters live who committ their hideous crimes again and again. Murder, rape, child molesting, kidnapping there are hundreds of cases of repeat offenders. don't believe the urban legend lie, putting one of those kinds of crimminals to death saves lives.

Right, because as we all know, there's no such thing as a life sentence without parole.

Re:Hint

[clickety6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates#United_States

Best to make sure you actually have the criminal...

Only if you fund your system...

[CohibaVancouver]

I could *perhaps* be convinced of the death penalty if the USA was willing to truly fund its justice system to ensure that trials were fair - And I mean fund to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars. You're never going to convince me of state-sanctioned killing while rich white guys are getting away with murder and poor black guys are being executed.

the entire process is ridiculous.

[nimbius]

the idea that somehow by murdering prisoners we make society a better place is as ridiculous as having a doctor whos taken the hippocratic oath commit the execution. To kill a prisoner is to at best wash the states hands of their responsibility to do anything more constructructive, like engage in corrective efforts that beget the name "correctional institution" in the first place. At worst, its incredibly condescending to assume intelligent americans would be comforted with this pittance of "biblical retribution" we call execution.
And it is. Capital punishment is derived from, and entirely indistinguishable in the 21st century from, biblical retribution. The idea that killing the killer will somehow make everything OK is nothing more than a laughably exotic attempt by the state to appease constituents clammouring for a reduction in violent crime.

and there has been a reduction in violent crime in america since the 1970's. its not lauded however. Peace and low crime rates dont win elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

so we gin up the voters with "suburban warzone" rhetoric and the voters insist on ever more stringent "tough on crime" criminal charges. We shuffle ever closer to a police state because we're told to. in turn our elected officials in contestable elections are morally reprehensible when facing a pink slip, so they fuel these flames for their own professional gain. our religious leaders sit idly by, as the notion of murdering the guilty is business as usual to them.

killing prisoners detracts from the big problem. low employment for unskilled labour combined with a gutted public education system and a criminal code designed to ensure everyone can be convicted if necessary is packing prisons to bursting. the 'wars' on drugs and the 3 strikes laws are nothing more than throwing sawdust on vomit. that if somehow we can contrive a repository for anyone not willing to live the life of a subservient peasant working 3 minimum wage part time jobs and living in squalor, then american is OK, freedom is preserved, and that pepperidge farm dream of the olden times punctuated by dean martin and bing crosby can go on unabated in the suburbs. the real problem is as a society, we have not accepted the fact that we cannot just ignore poor people. to do so created a culture, and class of individual that inevitably becomes determined with absolutely nothing to lose, and that person when they emerge will be as remorseless and callous as the hand of the free market under which they toiled.

Re:Hint

[Mysticalfruit]

While I'm all for squishing child molesters feet first using a steam roller in the lowest gear the issue is this...

It's confirmed that we've executed innocent people. Wrong place, wrong time, bad lawyers, biased juries. It's happened. People on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence so often that a couple years ago the Governor of Illinois mass commuted everybody on death row to life without parole.

While it's bad if a guilty man goes free, it's far worse if an innocent man is killed.

Re:Hint

[OzPeter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates#United_States

Best to make sure you actually have the criminal...

Probably a better link is Wrongful Execution:United States where they sure as hell didn't have the criminal, but went ahead and executed them anyway.

Misleading

[sacrilicious]

US Executions Threaten Supply of Anaesthetic Used For Surgical Procedures

HIGHLY misleading headline. I read the headline and thought, "wow, so many executions are occurring in the US that there's not enough of this drug for non-execution purposes"... which is a much more straightforward interpretation than what the article eventually gets into, which is that the use of the drug in a single execution would make an EU regulation kick in.

BOOOOOOO, slashdot editor. Boooo.

Re:Hint

[i kan reed]

Hmm, if we're not excusing historical behavior...
I seem to recall that the United States had a large indigenous population prior to the founding of the US government. What happened to them? Oh yeah, genocide.

And wasn't one of the most barbaric forms of slavery practiced in modern history done in the U.S? Why yes it was!

And didn't we have institutionalized racism, with official laws enforcing it until the 19-fucking-70s? Oh, we sure did!

And didn't the Nazis ride in on an anti-intellectualist platform? Why, yes they did.

Come on man, there's never been an intellectual justification for pretty violence, and you know it.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[Applekid]

An interesting fact about firing squads is one person has a blank.

"One of the sharpshooters is secretly armed with a blank round, which means that each shooter can rest comfortably in the knowledge that there is a 20% chance that she never shot the prisoner."
Firing Squad History

Strange how much effort we put into trying to relieve the guilt of those carrying out the murderous orders of the state.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[thaylin]

Well most non-sociopaths dont want to kill people, therefore we either find sociopaths who have not illegally killed people to do it and hope it does not trigger it a murder binge or we get normal people to do it and try to minimize the trauma to them.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[ultranova]

Well most non-sociopaths dont want to kill people, therefore we either find sociopaths who have not illegally killed people to do it and hope it does not trigger it a murder binge or we get normal people to do it and try to minimize the trauma to them.

Or you could just let murderers rot in jail, thus avoiding both trauma and the rather unfortunate idea that life is a privilege that is subject to revocation by the state at its will. It's not like death penalty serves any practical purpose anyway, besides keeping the idea that violence is justice alive and kicking.

Coming to think of it, I wonder if this is one of the reasons why the US has constant problems with mass shootings and serial killers: if it's okay for the state to do it...

Re:Wacky America

[lxs]

And somehow they manage to blame the EU.

The shooters aren't supposed to notice the recoil?

[Ellis D. Tripp]

presumably, the shooters have all fires rifles previously, and would surely notice the difference in recoil between a bullet and a blank round.

Yeah, losing Propofol would be a disaster

[sirwired]

Propofol is, by far, the most-used anesthetic induction agent; it has almost entirely replaced induction-by-mask, which is now largely confined to kids who don't take well to getting an IV while awake. For non-gas procedures, it's also the most common (only?) anesthetic used for continuous infusion.

A large hospital can easily go through literally gallons of the stuff a day.

Interesting choice of pronoun.

[GPS Pilot]

that there is a 20% chance that she never shot the prisoner

Interesting choice of pronoun. I'd guess that throughout history, there's a 99.8% chance that a given firing squad member is not female.