Pfizer Blocks The Use Of Its Drugs In Executions

HughPickens.com writes: Erik Eckholm reports in the NYT that the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced that it has imposed sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none are used in lethal injections, a step that closes off the last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions. "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve," the company says, and "strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment." "With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose," says Maya Foa. "Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal injection." The mounting difficulty in obtaining lethal drugs has already caused states to furtively scramble for supplies. Some states have used straw buyers or tried to import drugs from abroad that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, only to see them seized by federal agents. Other states have experimented with new drug combinations, sometimes with disastrous results, such as the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona in 2014, using the sedative midazolam. A few states have adopted the electric chair, firing squad or gas chamber as an alternative if lethal drugs are not available. Since Utah chooses to have a death penalty, "we have to have a means of carrying it out," said State Representative Paul Ray as he argued last year for authorization of the firing squad.

Comments

Let me be the first to say

[Firethorn]

Just switch to nitrogen asphyxiation if you want a humane execution which isn't dependent upon strapping the condemned down to a table, having to have a non-professional put an IV in, trouble getting drugs, etc...

The supplies can be had at any welding shop for not much money.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want humane executions, they want the condemned to suffer and writhe around in pain.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Vrallis]

Unfortunately that would never happen. I'm sure it would be the usual setup of a physician ensuring the location of the heart is marked as a target, multiple people firing, probably with a couple pointless blanks (shooters can tell the difference, hence pointless). A single shot to the head would be too reminiscent of executions by dictators and terrorists.

While I'm perfectly fine with execution when there is absolute proof of guilt there are too many people on death row under falsified evidence or just plain shit law enforcement or legal work. Right now incarceration for life is cheaper anyway.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

See, in most people, the breathing reflex is triggered by the presence of carbon dioxide - not the absence of oxygen. You could walk into a room containing pure nitrogen, breathe away, and feel just fine - right up until you collapse because of a lack of oxygen (in fact, you'd stop breathing reflexively, because your carbon dioxide levels would fall too low for the reflex to kick in). The same thing would happen with pure helium, pure argon, pure sulphur hexafluoride, etc. Any gas that is inert to the human body will work for this purpose (which rules out chlorine, fluorine, and other reactive gases.)

This isn't about forcing nitrogen into the body at high pressure (which is what happens as a precursor to the bends). This is about displacing the oxygen in a way that the body doesn't pick up on - it'd be like the executed victim just falls asleep and never wakes up.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[NotSoHeavyD3]

You know there's a youtube video called how to kill a human being where the pro death penalty guy is against nitrogen asphyxiation because it literally isn't gruesome enough.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Imrik]

Without the appearance of pain, the execution doesn't satisfy the desire for revenge, which is the driving motive behind the death penalty.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[ShanghaiBill]

This isn't about forcing nitrogen into the body at high pressure

That would cause nitrogen narcosis, which would actually be a pleasurable way to die. I have felt it a bit when doing deep scuba dives, and it was a nice feeling. I have heard it compared to cocaine. Fortunately, I was still sober enough to start heading up before I did something stupid enough to kill myself.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[ShanghaiBill]

It takes a minute or two at the least. And the suffoccee will gasp ferociously while tearing at their throat during before unconsciousness ensues. It is a horror show.

This is wrong. Inert gas asphyxiation is quick and painless. The victim usually does not even detect that anything is wrong before losing consciousness. There is no sensation of suffocation because there is no CO2 buildup in the blood.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[ShanghaiBill]

Just switch to nitrogen asphyxiation if you want a humane execution

Oklahoma has already legalized N2 asphyxiation as a backup to lethal injection. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed it into law last year. In other news, Mary Fallin is supposedly on Donald Trump's short list for VP.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[SuricouRaven]

This is one reason why advocates of the death penalty tend to reject the use of nitrogen. They want to see the condemned suffer at least a little - if the condemned dies happily, then people will feel justice has not been done.

Remember, people are basically bastards. Often 'justice' is just a polite veneer for 'collective revenge.' This person has made the group suffer, so the books can not be set straight until the same has been done to him.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Solandri]

When completely deprived of oxygen, loss of consciousness occurs within about 12 seconds, and death after about a minute. This is why the safety briefing aboard airliners says in the event of cabin depressurization you should put your oxygen mask on first, then your child's. If you try to put your child's mask on first, you'll likely go unconscious before you can get around to putting yours on.

It really is the perfect way to painlessly kill someone. Which I suspect is why it's not covered more by the media (a huge majority of whom are against the death penalty). A large part of the opposition to the death penalty is based on potential suffering of the prisoner. Presented with a guaranteed way to avoid that suffering, that opposition evaporates.

Disclaimer: I don't have a moral problem with a death penalty in certain cases, but I do not believe our current legal system is accurate enough to justify the use of death as a punishment. IMHO its irreversible nature disqualifies it from use in a justice system which has been proven to be error-prone.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[mwvdlee]

Being a murderer isn't as bad as being a mass murderer, but it's still bad.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[jandersen]

You know there's a youtube video called how to kill a human being where the pro death penalty guy is against nitrogen asphyxiation because it literally isn't gruesome enough.

Exactly - to all appearances, the American penal system is not primarily about justice or rehabilitation, but revenge and control. I don't remember how many times I have heard that "jail isn't supposed to be a holiday, it is supposed to feel like punishment". This fails to take into account several things - firstly that punishment to effective as a means of correcting behaviour must be accepted by the person punished as being reasonable and fair. Vindictive punishment causes resentment, which counteract any beneficial effect it might have had.

Secondly, many offenders don't have a lot of education or self-esteem, and they may not realise that they could lead a much better life if they learned to do the right things. I think most young offenders fall into this category - they don't wat to be criminals, drug addicts, violent or anything like that, but all they have learned tells them that they are worthless. They haven't done well in school, perhaps because the teachers are crap, perhaps because their home environment doesn't support learning; what hope do they have? Crime can seem so easy in that situation. And then we punish them vindictively, which confirms that they are worthless to society, and that they might as well carry on - at least it feels a little like getting back at a smug and overbearing society.

America is supposed to be one of the most religiously devoted countries in the developed world, but there seems to be little evidence of a willingness to forgive and get the best out of people. Perhaps this is because "religious" means "believing in holy scriptures rather than havingreal faith"; whatever the case may be, it is shameful.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Imrik]

I don't know that the death penalty significantly reduces recidivism when compared to life in prison.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[tlambert]

You know there's a youtube video called how to kill a human being where the pro death penalty guy is against nitrogen asphyxiation because it literally isn't gruesome enough.

Exactly - to all appearances, the American penal system is not primarily about justice or rehabilitation, but revenge and control.

It's actually about giving the rest of society an incentive to not engage in the same crimes for which someone else was found guilty. Just like the police do not come until a crime is happening, or after the fact, a disincentive can not be given until someone is judged guilty by a jury of their peers.

The police are not there to save you from a crime, they are there to clean up after the fact. The penal system is not enacting it's penalties with an aim to rehabilitate e.g. Jeffrey Dahmer, it's enacting its penalties to stop the next Jeffrey Dahmer from eating his first victim.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Kiuas]

The penal system is not enacting it's penalties with an aim to rehabilitate e.g. Jeffrey Dahmer, it's enacting its penalties to stop the next Jeffrey Dahmer from eating his first victim.

This is a giant strawman. The vast majority of criminals are not Jeffrey Dahlmer and are not serving a life sentence. This means that for MOST inmates the prison system is there to rehabilitate them to society.

No-one's arguing that there aren't mentally unstable individuals who cannot be released and so on, but tehabilitation and making sure the inmates, once released, do not commit crimes again is the primary focus of any sane penal system. If you look at actual data and charts on reconviction rates you'll note they go up as the length of the sentence goes up. This means the more time the inmate spends in jail, the higher the chance of them committing a crime again is. The US is not the only country where this happens, but if time spent in jail increases instead of decreases the chances of a re-conviction, it ought to be clear that the system is faulty.

Compare that to something like Norway which has one of the 'softest' prison systems and has no life imprisonment (technically, although with people like Brevik it's unlikely he will ever be let free, as they have to pass an assessment before release or the sentence can be continued, and even if he's ever released he'll probably be released into a mental institution) and has incredibly humane conditions (that is it allows for the inmates to live fairly normal lives within controlled conditions), the re-conviction rates are far lower because it turns out if you treat prisoners as people instead of cattle to be kept in small boxes and the released after several years with limited rights and next to no employment options, they actually for the most part turn out to become productive members of society.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Kiuas]

No. It is there so that they can visibly be penalized for their crimes, to the benefit of society as a whole. They serve as negative examples.

That as well, but also the point is to try and make sure they do not do those things again. If you're going to say it doesn't make a difference whether the reconvition rate is 15 % or 99 % then I don't really understand how you deem society benefits from high reconviction. It's obviously better the lower the re-conviction rates are, both for the inmate as well as for the socíety, so to argue that rehabilitation is not an important function of the system makes no sense to me.

Perhaps people who are given longer penalties are more prone to commit crimes, thus deserving those longer penalties. In other words: it's the person who causes their own recidivism, and not the length of time they spend in prison on prior convictions.

The numbers you supplied do not account for that.

They do not account for that yes, that's one thing that surely factors into it as well, I should have pointed this out in my post, my bad.

Still point being: prisoners released from the US system have significantly worse outlook than their western counterparts as the felony conviction pretty much makes it impossible to get employment, and in some states even blocks access to housing etc. If you keep people who're already violent/dangerous when they come in in rather inhumane conditions, then you release them with even less of a chance of making a living legally than before they went in, it should not come as a surprise that most of these people turn back to crime. Ex-inmates are societal outcasts, which make them a ripe target for organized crime tor recruit.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[greenfruitsalad]

you're talking about america. people would queue if given the chance to press the electrocute button.

if i could pick how to be executed, my friend (A&E nurse) tells me insulin injection and subsequent hypoglycemic shock is as peaceful a way to go as it gets. i'm also pretty sure it allows for organ harvest which i'd definitely want.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[rikkards]

Except that rape isn't about sex, it's about control. Castration has been found not to work

An alternative to the death penalty

[ClickOnThis]

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.

Re:Corporation trumps government

[Harlequin80]

But all they are doing is exercising their right to not sell you a product. There is no requirement for Pfizer or any other corporation to sell something to you if they don't want to. Of course you have the right to refuse to buy anything else from them and encourage others to do the same. But nothing they are doing is implicitly wrong.

I live in Florida

[bangular]

When the cost argument started to gain traction here in Florida, Rick Scott just tried to make it cheaper to kill people by speeding up the process. It's not about justice, it's about revenge.

Re:I live in Florida

[ScentCone]

They're removed from society.

No, they're not. Or are you imagining some sort of dungeon they're thrown into until they starve to death after a few weeks? If you're not, then consider that such prisoners are actually part of a large culture within the facility where they're detained. Their needs are seen to by large numbers of people who are very much part of the wider society, and the wider society very much has to spend part of every day producing the goods and services needed to keep that person alive. If they were removed from society, then society would have none those burdens. And no, for many people, it's NOT enough to lock them up, because they still get to live and carry on and read novels and watch movies and be fed and cared for - possibly for several decades - while the person whose life they snuffed out cannot, and the lives impacted by that are forever robbed of what was taken. And yet they get to support the person who took that life, every day.

Re:I live in Florida

[jordanjay29]

And that's why we don't let victims play judge, jury or executioner.

Re:I live in Florida

[johanw]

And then your state executes my relative who later is proven to be not guilty. For revenge, I will execute the judge(s) and executioner who murdered my relative. Is that OK with you?

Re:This is nuts

[MightyMartian]

Except, of course, capital punishment isn't actually a deterrents.

It's vengeance, pure and simple, and while I understand why people want it, if it is going to continue, it shouldn't be wrapped up in the language of crime prevention, because it doesn't prevent crimes. Allowing capital punishment to be justified in this way is simply a way to make it more palatable, and state-sanctioned killings should be anything but palatable.

Re:Corporate conscience

[Imrik]

The real explanation, execution drugs make up a tiny amount of profit for them, the advertising and good image they project by making this declaration is far more valuable.

Re:This is nuts

[Dorianny]

Except, of course, capital punishment isn't actually a deterrents.

It's vengeance, pure and simple, and while I understand why people want it, if it is going to continue, it shouldn't be wrapped up in the language of crime prevention, because it doesn't prevent crimes. Allowing capital punishment to be justified in this way is simply a way to make it more palatable, and state-sanctioned killings should be anything but palatable.

Whether anyone is deterred by the possibility of a State Execution while contemplating an act that carries the Capital Punishment is debatable, once on Death Row they sure try mighty hard to get stay alive

Moral trumps Americans

[jopsen]

Not this case, there are many ways to kill people, none of them are humane...
Capital punishment is widely considered cruel and inhuman punishment in violation of the human rights convention.
The US and Japan is the last western countries to maintain this barbaric practice...

No, I think it's alright for companies to stand up against this issue.. Seriously, European countries have threaten local companies that they could face criminal charges if they exported drugs intended to murder people.
I'm not even sure that's so far fetched, when capital punishment is seen as a human rights violation, why shouldn't your company be held responsible for murder, if you export drugs for such purposes.

rest of world vs USA

[dr.Flake]

I don't want to be the one patronizing all you "helpful experts" suggesting wonderful alternative methods to get rid of (execute) your inmates. History has taught us endless options to end the life of fellow humans, there is no shortage at all, lest the need for more.

But a large part of the rest of this planet frowns upon this fixation and desire to implement the death penalty. I wouldn't hurt to look in your mirror critically and realize in what good company you guys are (think Saudi Arabia, Iran north Korea etc)

Please, use you're knowledge and good judgement, your academic independent view, to suggest options for the US to join the rest of the civilised world and to abolish the death penalty.
What you guys really need is a more humane society, not a more efficient way to kill humans. You already excel in that subject.

Doesn't work like that

[dbIII]

However, if you are thinking about murder, and you start imagining the needle is waiting for you

Do you really think a mugger or whatever is thinking that far ahead?
Sure, it's going to stop the honest people who consider their actions and consequences but they already have plenty of things to stop them.

Criminals have a bad habit of not doing what they are told to do so your "sending a message" is unlikely to work. Maybe those "flower child researchers", some of who served in Korea and Vietnam, fit your definition of "a real man" more than any of the readers of this website and thus did not arrive at "flower child conclusions". Criminology isn't for the faint of heart after all.