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Oklahoma Says It Will Now Use Nitrogen Gas As Its Backup Method of Execution
schwit1 writes Yesterday, Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill that approves the use of nitrogen gas for executions in the state. The method, which would effectively asphyxiate death row inmates by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen through a gas mask, is meant to be the primary alternative to lethal injection, the Washington Post reports.
Fallin and other supporters of the procedure say it's pain-free and effective, noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes. It's also cheap: state representatives say the method only requires a nitrogen tank and a gas mask, but financial analysts say its impossible to give precise figures, the Post reports.
Oklahoma's primary execution method is still lethal injection, but the state's procedure is currently under review by the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, Tennessee suspended executions statewide following challenges to its own lethal injection protocol.
Fallin and other supporters of the procedure say it's pain-free and effective, noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes. It's also cheap: state representatives say the method only requires a nitrogen tank and a gas mask, but financial analysts say its impossible to give precise figures, the Post reports.
Oklahoma's primary execution method is still lethal injection, but the state's procedure is currently under review by the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, Tennessee suspended executions statewide following challenges to its own lethal injection protocol.
We kill people because they kill people. So who kills the people who kill people because they killed people when we find out they didn't actually kill anyone?
FFS! What is the accepted definition of execution? Does it involve pain or discomfort?
What's wrong with anesthesia?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
That's a pretty good method to die (not that I'm a huge fan of capital punishment). Wikipedia says Right-to-die groups recommend this form of suicide as certain, fast, and painless, according to a 2007 study.
Helium, for the giggles. Plus, if there's a leak, you'll know it because people will sound like Donald Duck, whereas the first sign of a nitrogen leak is people passing out.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"Does anyone doubt that the Tsarneavs were responsible for killing and maiming dozens? Timothy Mcveigh?"
It's a little hard to ask him what he thinks about the Tsarneavs these days.
Guillotine. Make sure the guides are sufficiently greased and the blade exquisitely sharp, it will be over in a second or so.
If there's a question about the instance of pain as the blade slices through the neck, rub a numbing solution on the skin.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
supreme court: guise the combination of drain-o and bug spray you used to kill someone is...unorthodox...we're going to need to review it so until then you might suspend executions. ...
Oklahoma: never fear! we've found that firing squads are extremely effective! executions can continue!
supreme court: jesus guys...no..thats not the point. the point is, you know, you at least make an attempt to reflect on the nature of capital punishment and the repercussions morally and financially of a system in
Oklahoma:Nitrogen gas! shall be used in a highly controlled and technological manner in order to...
supreme court: FFS guys....youre going to off people with the gas that car dealerships use to mark up lemons?
Oklahoma: The gun from Star Trek Into Darkness will henceforeth be legally permitted in the administration of justice! for this we will...
supreme court: ok...that one doesnt even exist...
Good people go to bed earlier.
Nitrous oxide, aka. NO2 or Laughing gas, would let the bastards go out laughing their asses off. Then there would be no debate about the cruelty of the death penalty method.
Actually, it doesn't make you laugh, but you space out a bit. If you want to try it, just buy a can of whipped cream at your local supermarket. DO NOT shake the can. Hold it the can upright, stick it in your mouth, press on the dispenser thing, and inhale. DO NOT exhale immediately. The effects will last about 30 seconds, during which you will have all sorts of dreamy thoughts about how huge the universe is.
If a death penalty candidate is given a steady flow of this, he will be asphyxiate, because he will be some deep in his dreams, that he will forget to breathe.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If they survive the nitrogen chamber, they must be Martians.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why in the first place? We have been aware of nitogren effects for how long? All I know about it is in diving. This method actually sounds pretty good simple and quick.
Some people think that every problem can be fixed by adding more guns. Why not this one?
BBC Documentary - How to Kill a Human Being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Put them in jail instead.
It's cheaper and a wrongful conviction can be reversed.
The majority of countries no longer have the death penalty.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
figuring out to to execute people instead of solving real issues.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes.
Um, what? How the hell does that work? When I was a kid I tried to sing an entire song while doing multiple helium inhales in a row, not stopping for air. It was over a minute before the room suddenly went a little dark and spin-y.
It wasn't at all painful. I didn't notice anything different at all until seconds before I was (presumably) going to pass out. If it were deemed uncomfortable, the condemned could be given an oral or gaseous anesthetic first.
The death penalty is wrong and stupid in many ways, but I hope we can at least put aside the quibbling over method now. It has been a ridiculous distraction from the real issues.
Is nitrogen used because it is cheaper than oxygen?
It doesn't work the same as holding your breath.
When you breath a gas containing no oxygen, oxygen streams out of your blood, as it is lower oxygen than the blood, and that is how the blood 'knows' to dump oxygen.
This means that what's coming out of the lungs is largely deoxygenated blood, not oxygenated.
This rapidly causes unconsciousness - much faster than just holding your breath.
It's a not uncommon industrial accident.
You don't really notice it - there is no shortness of breath, you simply feel a bit woozy one breath, and then are unconscious the next, and the next breath may not happen.
In Communist China, they kill you with nitrogen gas and bill your family for the demurrage.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I'm not sure why it's considering more humane to keep someone locked up forever than simply to kill them and end what is essentially torture...
The more you allow contact with other prisoners, the more you are punishing others by allowing contact with someone who has no reason or incentive to avoid harm to others.
The more you keep someone locked away the more it is essentially torture.
The death penalty should not be about expense, but exists because some people simply cannot live without harming others, and have no place in the world.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
it's been the only way anti-death penalty folks could make even the slightest bit of progress in the States. The problem is how our politics work, which is all about getting people to vote and vote for you. The pro crowd will vote against you if they think you're against the death penalty. They'll see you as "soft" on crime. For the most part the anti-death penalty crowd doesn't care. They've got other issues that matter more than how they perceive your stance on crime.
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They used hydrogen cyanide (in the form of Zyklon B) and carbon monoxide (from engine exhaust) in their extermination camps. The labor camps didn't try to kill people efficiently.
the breathing reflex is based on CO2 . Breathing pure nitrogen would reduce CO2 so as to satisfy that mechanism , but not providing the O2 survival requires. O2 in the blood is used up quickly, that is why we need to breathe constantly.
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As a society, the majority strive to better themselves, intellectually, physically and socially. To advocate state sanctioned revenge killing of murderers and rapists is regressing to their level.
Why would anyone ever try to improve on the good old bullet to the head. The only decent method of execution to have ever been used.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Because between 5 and 10% of convicted felons are actually innocent of the crime they were convicted of. Given the current state of laws in the US, saying they are wholly innocent of any lawbreaking is insane. In any case, that means that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 of people killed by the state should not have been, which is wholly unacceptable.
When someone says something is "more humane" it almost always means it's far worse for the subject, but makes the person claim it's more humane feel better and helps avoid hard truths.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Capital punishment certainly can be "revenge killing", but it is not necessarily so. Personally, I think that if it's fairly applied and handled reasonably, it can be as simple as a society determining that an individual is simply too dangerous and destructive to be allowed to continue existing. I have no problem with that. Prison guards, staff, and indeed other prisoners are people too and they have a right to be protected from particularly destructive and dangerous individuals. At some point, it's fair to admit that you cannot adequately control the violence unleashed at every opportunity by someone who is fundamentally broken in a way we cannot fix.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Yeah, this is something that's often overlooked. The "omg I can't hold my breath any longer" reflex has nothing to do with oxygen, it is solely based on CO2 buildup. Someone breathing pure nitrogen wouldn't even realize anything was wrong until right before they lose consciousness (which would happen in seconds anyway).
Stop killing people.
Anyone entering that facility as a prisoner should be effectively dead to the world.
I assume you would give them the same access to lawyers and religious counselors that condemned prisoners routinely have today (at least in some countries).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Sure, why not? There comes a point where an individual is so dangerous and destructive that a society cannot contain the violence they unleash at every opportunity. Life in prison merely changes the population exposed to that individual. Prison guards, staff, and other prisoners deserve protection from such uncontrollably violent people just as much as anyone else. Capital punishment reduces recidivism rates to zero. No one who has been executed has ever been found to continue committing crimes.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Yeah.. unfortunately people have been found to have not committed crimes before their execution after the sentence was carried out.
I wonder if we'd still have capital punishment if the state/fed congress had to rotate one of the body to execute the state's condemned with a pistol at close range every few months.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Capital punishment certainly can be "revenge killing", but it is not necessarily so. Personally, I think that if it's fairly applied and handled reasonably, it can be as simple as a society determining that an individual is simply too dangerous and destructive to be allowed to continue existing. I have no problem with that. Prison guards, staff, and indeed other prisoners are people too and they have a right to be protected from particularly destructive and dangerous individuals. At some point, it's fair to admit that you cannot adequately control the violence unleashed at every opportunity by someone who is fundamentally broken in a way we cannot fix.
Capital punishment is evidence the society is lawless and moral-less despite proclaiming to be a lawful and justice-seeking society. A prison like Alcatraz to house the truly violent and those for whom rehabilitation has failed is sufficient to protect society yet remain above the barbarism of executions.
Death by nitrogen is the ideal way to die. It's so effective it's one of the dangers in nitrogen inerted buildings. You don't know you are dieing you just pass out. SOmeone comes along sees you down in the room and tries to rescue you and bang they keel over too. It's the classic farmer manure pit death.
the key here is that your urgent need to breath oddly enough is not triggered by lack of oxygen but by build up of CO2. when you remove the O2 from your air then you don't notice it because your alarm system isn't triggered. You are still getting rid of the CO2 in your blood.
Why nature rigged it like that I have no idea but it is easy to see that under almost any normal condition the two are linked making having separate sensors of O2 and CO2 not needed so why evolve one.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The Nitrogen (or any asphyxiation that doesn't involve the buildup of Carbon Dioxide) method involves turning off the brain's ability to feel pain as prelude to death.
Given the terrible fuckups that we see in executions recently, it's reasonable to assume that almost anything that can be screwed up, will be screwed up, and this one seems a lot simpler than some three needle solution using drugs you can't get made by anonymous compounding pharmacists you can't find with quality you can't test for administered by doctors that aren't trained. No, none of those things HAVE to happen, but they seem to keep happening.
This sort of execution method sidesteps those problems. But, why do we suspect it is painless? Mostly because people who recover from accidental exposure to Nitrogen generally report being utterly surprised.
In practice, it may be more humane to administer a sedative or even anesthesia beforehand. But acquiring those seems to be the problem in the first place: still, more options would likely be available than in the classic "three drug combination" of lethal injection, where an anesthetic (hopefully) dulls the pain, while a paralytic agent stops breathing (which causes pain) and a heart stopping agent stops the heart (which causes pain).
If they don't go this route, you'll likely see a condemned man struggling to hold his breath as long as he can, trying to avoid death, and eventually losing consciousness, inhaling, regaining consciousness for a moment to flail, and then dying. One thing that's missing from all the real life accounts is that almost everyone who gets into trouble with nitrogen or another oxygen displacing agent doesn't realize that they are in danger until it is too late or almost so, and as such the reports of painlessness are definitely flavored by that fact.
...unless you're a smoker and have highly depressed CO2 overload sensations due to your constant saturation.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
And the problem with the appeals is that every official involved in the case has an interest, a set of perverse incentives, in upholding the death sentences. No policeman, attorney or judge wants the public to know that they helped to sentence an innocent to death. The result: the appeals process is an uphill battle against the establishment, and most people lack the resources (money) to carry out a successful appeal.
Other studies prove that witnesses are far less reliable than generally assumed, that often the cops and district attorneys put too much pressure on witnesses and suspects, or directly manipulate or hide evidence that could set the suspect free.
Is the American legal system perfect and free of errors and corruption? Can you resurrect a wrongly executed person? If you can't answer affirmatively to at least one of these questions, death penalty is just another crime.
To further clarify my point, most of the convicts in the death row probably deserve to be executed, but the rest of the population doesn't deserve to live in a country that has that kind of power over its citizens, because that power will be -and has been- abused.
Let the downvotes begin... . Anyway this needed to be said.
Let me just first clear out all the people that just don't like executions... lets just take for the sake of argument that executions are going to happen. I know you don't like them... but they're here to stay. Assuming that point, this method of execution is quite a good one. It doesn't inflict pain on people, it doesn't outwardly damage the body, it is very reliable, etc. It has everything going for it so long as you accept that executions are going to happen.
Now I know you don't want to accept that and I am not forcing you to... I don't have that power. I am simply asking to separate the discussion about executions in general from this specific type of execution. I don't really want to have a long conversation about capital punishment.
If you reply to me, talk to me about THIS method of execution. That is what interests me.
On topic, I am really happy they finally did this... the previous methods had too many problems with them. This method is ideal.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This may be true under the legal codes of some countries
Sorry, but after that statement I really cannot see you as anything but a monster.
When I said "[Your previous comment "that some people have truly lost the right to be considered human any more"] may be true under the legal codes of some countries" I was conceding to you that I do not know the laws of every country and it is conceivable that at least one country's laws may say that people are no longer people in the eyes of the law if they commit certain criminal acts. Or maybe no country does. I simply do not know.
I don't see how admitting my ignorance of foreign law makes me a monster.
I also don't see how the fact that, for now at least (until/unless the Supreme Court says otherwise), Treason is a death-penalty offense in America is related to any of the comments I made in this post.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You're correct, and also irrelevant to the fact that this thread was talking about CO2 buildup causing the urge to breathe, even if the article is about what you bring up.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'll bet that pouring liquid nitrogen down an inmates throat would be even quicker. Or we could just toss the inmate into a barrel filled with liquid nitrogen. Or we could use a barrel of Liquid oxygen and after the inmate is frozen solid the barrel and inmate could be lit on fire to provide cremation on the spot. No mess, no fuss and nice clean ashes to sweep up a bit as a bonus. Then we could powder the bones just as funeral homes do and use the bone in concrete to make more death chambers. i'm a fun guy!
Why are legislators sugar coating executions? Take the death row inmates out back and shoot them. It's cheaper. If you have a problem with them being shot, then you will probably have to have a problem with executions in general. Hire a robot to do the shooting. That way no one will be forced to deal with "it".
...I'd want a high-velocity bullet in the head, from a single person, at close range.
All of these other methods, like lethal injections and nitrogen, are absolutely grotesque, overly dramatic and not "humane" at all.
With a bullet, there is nothing to debate over. The rounds are cheap and easily available. There is no horrifically botched execution in the case of a misfire. And the hydrostatic shock destroys your brain instantly, so there is no pain.
Entirely right about nitrogen asphyxia. There is nothing magic about nitrogen; you could as well use any other colorless, odorless inert gas, but nitrogen is the cheapest.
One correction, though. "Stopping the heart" per se is most definitely not painful. Ask anyone who has undergone true sudden complete cardiac arrest. You immediately feel a surreal calm as all that commotion in your chest you never really noticed until that moment, and the rush of blood through your head, stops. Within single digit seconds you feel crazy high. In 10-20 seconds you are out like a light. It may take 10 minutes for clinical irreversible death to eventuate, but after 10-20 seconds you are a sack of meat. We know from those whose heart spontaneously restarts, or are resuscitated before complete death or brain damage, that the experience after 10-20 seconds is nothing more than unconsciousness.
It's not so much that CO2, or cardiac arrest, "turns off" pain. It entirely sidesteps the strangling sensation caused by buildup of CO2. As others have noted, there is no physiologic sensation from lack of oxygen, but there is an almighty agony from CO2 buildup.
No country or society can call itself truly civilized until it has abolished capital punishment completely. Capital punishment is barbaric and should have no place in a modern society.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
time.
Executions must be in kind:
Firearms killers -> musketry
Cold steel murderers -> beheading
Strangulators -> gallows
Capital arsonists -> burning at the stake
Poisoners -> posion
Dismemberers -> attached to horses and pulled apart
Cannibals -> damnation to the beasts' pit
Bombers -> roped to cannon muzzle and fired
Those are neither cruel or unusual punishment, because if the same method of execution was cruel, the murderer wouldn't have done that to the victim(s) in the first place. The same method of execution is also not unusual, since the perpertrator has already done that to the victim(s). QED
"IF" states in this country are still going to use the death penalty, they should at least give the condemned a choice. The degree to which governments have gone to sanitize execution bespeaks the embarrassing nature of the whole operation. Rather than doing it quickly, loudly and publicly, they do it in some dark secluded basement with an injection as if they're trying to obscure the fact that they are killing someone.
I don't anticipate being in this position, but I'd definitely take a firing squad to being poisoned and/or asphyxiated.
If the government is willing to execute people and call it "justice", then they should do it out in the open and/or broadcast it on TV for all the world to see. Poisons and gases are, IMO, much more barbaric to the condemned than the old methods. Those methods are not more "humane", they merely spare the authorities from having to clean up the mess associated with their deeds.
The media acted like a European import ban in killer chemicals for lethal injection was the end of the world. It's not that damn hard to kill someone. In fact, they could just give him too much of basically any depressant and too much of almost any anesthetic.
I support the death penalty for humanitarian reasons. Life in prison is the most protracted method of torture to death possible. Any other method is more humane, even Medieval ones.
Nitrogen asphyxiation is probably ok. It'll be over in less than a day for sure.
I think the world record for holding your breath is like 17 minutes?
That's why I don't buy the 'loses consiousness in 10 seconds'
They ought to use CO instead. Still. whatever. A firing squad or hanging, or a gullotine would be fine. Breaking on the wheel, being hung drawn and quartered, even the brazen bull, would be better than life in prison. Life in prison vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Now that's a hell of a choice...
...
It's not revenge, it's permanently disabling very, very, dangerous people, and being confined to prison is not a guarantee of disabling them.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
These are murderers, rapists, and other scumbags. We do we care if their deaths are painless? Their victims' deaths certainly weren't...
Ah, the old letting someone else's lack of morality justify your own, eh? I would think we care because we are not murderers, rapists or scumbags. But I guess it's easier to act like the people you condemn when you use their behavior as a benchmark for your own.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
hey it could help someone with erectile dysfunction!
How about removing the ability for the condemned man in your example from knowing exactly when the execution will take place? By this I mean have the gas mask placed on at some point before the appointed time. The mask would be providing a mixture of 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, basically equivalent to standard atmosphere. This would be akin to having the IVs placed a short time before the execution now, with a saline solution running through to keep them open. At the appointed time, with no immediate warning to the condemned, the O2 mixture is reduced (without changing the flow volume of the mixture in general so that there is no change perceived) to 0%, bringing the mixture to the lethal 100% nitrogen. This would give him no warning and no time to hold his breath or make himself a spectacle, as he'd go from one breath as "normal" to the next having no oxygen. Before he had time to think about it he'd be out of oxygen. He wouldn't have time to hold his breath, and if he did there would be seconds before his brain would be unconscious anyway. There would be no gasping for air as once he is unconscious, the subconscious portions of the brain that *may* still be acting for a few more seconds wouldn't have the buildup of CO2 in the system to trigger the suffocating/gasping response.
Leaving aside any debates as to the morality of executions themselves, I think this is probably the best way to go given the options. I do believe that if I were wrongfully convicted of something and had exhausted all of my appeals, knowing there was no way I could avoid being put to death, this is the way I'd want to go.
Actually I'd hope to be put under general anesthetic, have all of my viable organs harvested and given to those that desperately need them. Obviously after the heart and lungs are gone it wouldn't take but 30 seconds and my brain would be gone. I can see how this could be considered an issue though, especially when there is doubt about the commission of a crime to begin with. "They just executed him to harvest his organs." That is a doubt you don't want cast. Despite the execution process being ultimately wasteful, it is probably necessary to keep it that way so there is no doubt.
How is this any different than a prisoner fighting the guards and straining against their restraints the entire time until the drugs are administered? I've not done any research, but it seems like you'd hear of this happening all of the time, and being cited on every anti-death-penalty comment. I think most of the time that the condemned has come to terms with it by the time their day comes, and realize fighting it is only going to make them look weak in the eyes of what few friends and family members may still be there for them. Obviously I'm sure they're not happy it is happening, but without evidence to suggest this is an issue in any but the rarest of cases, I don't think it is much of a concern in the long run.
I had partial nitrogen exposure due to a leak that had happened in an industrial nitrogen tank I was transporting. I did pass out, but I can tell you there was zero pain involved. It actually felt completely euphoric. I wasn't gasping for air or anything like that (though I did realize what had happened and I got the hell out as quick as possible, so I never went under), but even realizing what had happened didn't give me a sense of panic, and afterwards there were no lingering effects. I really think this should be the preferred method of execution. It's simple and demonstrably painless. If I had to die suddenly, I would prefer that to practically any other method.
Ack, did NOT pass out. Stupid no edit button.
Fabric plus liquid nitrogen is a bad combination. You can safely dip you hand in liquid nitrogen (briefly) (assuming no rings, gloves, or other items on you hands) because it has low specific heat and your body heat quickly evaporates it to form a layer of air around your hand. Spill a little on your clothes and you will instantly get frost bite.
I am not in favor of capitol punishment and here are my reasons which have taken a good part of my adult life to figure out: 1. The state can & will make mistakes. Someone once said let 100 guilty men go free, instead of killing 1 innocent man. 2. If the person is innocent of the crime, they have the rest of their natural lives to exonerate themselves. If they can show malice in the trial or sentencing then they may have recourse against the state or the individual who sent them to prison. 3. If they are guilty, they have to wake up every day and knowing the person looking back at them in the mirror is guilty. That may be worse than the release of death.... 4. Life without parole is a perfectly acceptable sentence, they will no longer be a menace in society. 5. I do not have a citation, but in my home state according to a newspaper article, since 1972 we have put to death 4 people. In that time 15 I believe have died on death row before they faced the chair or the needle, so effectively they had life without parole. 6. No need to comment, I have spent over 3 decades thinking on and reading about capitol punishment. I now simply state my point and walk away, feel free to take it, leave it or dismiss it.
"If stupid things work...then they are not stupid."
Be serious. Escape from prison in the US is so rare that it's basically statistical noise.
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Experience shows that this effect does not occur to the desired extent.
If they don't go this route, you'll likely see a condemned man struggling to hold his breath as long as he can, trying to avoid death, and eventually losing consciousness, inhaling, regaining consciousness for a moment to flail, and then dying.
I would assume that, in your scenario, the person wouldn't regain consciousness when they start breathing. They would start breathing because they had lost control sufficiently to pass out, would exhale, would inhale a quantity of oxygen-free air, and so would not improve their oxygen levels. They would continue down the path to suffocation. Continuing breathing isn't going to improve their physical state, although it will be less uncomfortable than holding their breath.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
The Nazis found that to be very effective. State sponsored murder is about the same.