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States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com)
States are reportedly turning to nitrogen gas to carry out the death penalty. "Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen for executions and are developing protocols to use it, which represents a leap into the unknown," reports The New York Times. "There is no scientific data on executing people with nitrogen, leading some experts to question whether states, in trying to solve old problems, may create new ones." Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via The New York Times: What little is known about human death by nitrogen comes from industrial and medical accidents and its use in suicide. In accidents, when people have been exposed to high levels of nitrogen and little air in an enclosed space, they have died quickly. In some cases co-workers who rushed in to rescue them also collapsed and died. Nitrogen itself is not poisonous, but someone who inhales it, with no air, will pass out quickly, probably in less than a minute, and die soon after -- from lack of oxygen. The same is true of other physiologically inert gases, including helium and argon, which kill only by replacing oxygen.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
That word doesn't mean what they think it means.
that's what they're doing.
Not a fan of the death penalty but if you're going to check-out, be it by choice or inflicted then this is one of the nicest ways to go (& cheap/simple). Light headed & pass out. Helium balloons work too but you need a mask to keep the thing in place.
What's good for CO2 scrubbing? A simple balloon rebreather & CO2 absorber should do the job if a bit slower while the O2 converts. I guess I'm coming at this problem from the euthanasia angle rather than the "kill our citizens" one... Not speaking from experience realise... ;) [well I think we've all gone light-headed with the Helium thing]
used helium gas to assist his patients who wanted to commit suicide. I believe it is still used by organizations such as Dignitas for the same purpose.
This has been experienced thousands of times in places like Air Force training. They live and talk about passing out as either sudden or quite enjoyable. So yes it works fast and painless. HOWEVER you must still question WHY KILL?
There are many fast and painless methods, a slaughter house probably could give pointers - but people aren't food animals SO WHY KILL?
Using an unproven means is a clear ethics violation. Where are the double-blind clinical trials?.
This story leads me to a very humorous event at work. While working on a A/C system, I noted to an inspector that the dry nitrogen in the system (used to pressure test the pipes) needed to be released into the atmosphere. This A/C was for a temporary building in the middle of a wide open yard for a power company.
Well this idea.....releasing a gas into the atmosphere was enough to trigger multiple phone calls, and eventually a 4 week delay, since there was about 3 very important meetings about this deadly concept.
I noted to the inspector that air contains 78% Nitrogen. But, he was not convinced, and knew that his job was now question.
Finally, the mighty minds, agreed to let me take out the nitrogen, but it needed to be recovered.
This time, I kept my mouth shut, and "recovered" the nitrogen........
All was well, and the power company lives to see another day.... :)
You know what? If I was condemned to death, I'd want a pullet through the head. That's VERY quick and painless.
If a state is callous enough to consider the killing of human beings an acceptable form of punishnment, why is it so fixated on killing them by pumping them full of chemicals or gasses?
If the state officials want to sanitize the act of murdering a human being, all they have to do is stick them into a box with some kind of automated mechanism to fire a bullet through the person's head inside the box. Okay, say three bullets to be extra-sure. Then if they really, REALLY don't want to deal with the mess, they can take out the closed box whole for incineration. See? All they'd have to watch is a guy going into a box, and the guy inside the box would never suffer. No need for all that nitrogen nonsense.
Incidentally, all these talks of gassing prisoners reeks of something else we've seen in the past. I'm surprised our powers-that-be don't try at all costs to steer clear away from the immediate parallel those of us with a memory are certain to draw...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Plus it would make the prisoners last words sound awesome!
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Use helium gas.
Then at least death row inmates could turn their last minutes into a comedy skit, should they wish.
We seek better and better, more and more "clinical" means of state-sanctioned killing. First the electric chair, then gas, then injection, then back to gas, apparently. It's almost as if we don't want to admit what the state is doing in the public's name. Personally, if we're going to keep the death penalty, I'd like to see the judge, jury members, and DA draw straws to be on a firing squad. If people are willing to sentence others to death, they should be willing to put their "money where their mouth" is. Better yet, get rid of capital punishment. Wasteful, expensive for appeals, and too much risk of a wrongful convicting that can't be reversed. See also: Cameron Todd Willingham and the West Memphis Three.
I'm going to sketch out some dots (really close together), and I want you to try to connect them...
1 - you're trying to come up with a way to efficiently off people
2 - you're constantly screeching about how fentanyl is instant death
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
I say death by snu snu
Inert gas narcosis on air/nitrox doesn't become a significant concern until past 4ata / 100fsw. For air that's a PPN2 of 3.12. Breathing 100% N2 at 1 ata wouldn't even remotely induce any type of narcosis. This is different the breathing in fresh N2 with each breath. Breathing is controlled by CO2 levels and this method tricks the body into thinking everything is fine by keeping CO2 levels low in the body. Very effective... you never know what hit you. Now why are we trying to "solve old problems"? That's purely a political problem not a technical problem.
Life in prison with no possibility of parole. That is 1/4 the cost, much more humane, and can be reversed if you realize you made a mistake such as crooked forensic scientists getting caught faking the data or police detectives forcing fake confessions. These things happen and it is much easier to say, "oops sorry" when the person is still alive.
The death penalty DOES NOT reduce crime.
This is the top search result for suicide on the web. The act is painless,inexpensive and generally safe. If you want to pass from this world, you should get acquainted with nitrogen masks.
Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% argon. We all breath in nitrogen with no impact. If we have too much carbon dioxide in our air our bodies try to pass the bad air and get rid of the CO2. To much CO2 in our lungs and we panic.
If we don't have oxygen, we get dizzy and pass out in a couple of breaths. Dead in 4 minutes. NO panic, rapid lose of consciousness. Death while unconscious.
I am not a fan of executions, but if the state wants to kill them, this is far more humane then lethal injection, electrocutions, hanging or firing squad.
They do need protocols. The nitrogen should be medical grade (ie not have any hydrocarbons) so once the act is finished spectators won't be impacted. The gas needs to be applied with a breathing mask, so the CO2 is removed with every breath and replaced with nitrogen to prevent any panic. The mask can be plumbed so the exhalations are removed such that they don't impact the O2 level in the room. There should be O2 level sensors in the room so any system failure would alert attending guards.
The execution can be designed such that the only the execution victim suffers oxygen deprivation. There is no need to remove oxygen from the whole room..
I am not sure anyone should be executed, but if they are going to be executed, I think this is the best way.
machinator omnis sine licentia
It is also the method being pushed by a number of Euthanasia proponents..
Which does kind of imply that it is not the worst method...
Of course people will mix this up with the morality of WHY the state is executing people, however
the two really are separate - trying to block executions by questioning the method is kind of stupid,
is that is the issue then address it directly.
It's strange that places that have the highest distrust of government also are cool with the government executing people. Just yesterday, there was a story of a guy who was on death row for 16 years before he was completely exonerated. I would think that just one of those cases would be enough so that anyone with a moral compass would oppose the death penalty. But if there's one thing we know, it's that Americans love seeing people get kilt and they love feeling self-righteous, so that makes for a lethal combination. People in red states seem to love giving their governments the ultimate power over life and death.
Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Mississippi that anyone here would want, so this only affects the poor folks who live there. But it does explain why they're at the bottom of almost every state ranking of quality of life.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem with N2 is that some prisoners are going to hold their breath for 3-4 minutes, then start breathing the N2. While the comments are accurate about people who want to die, or accidentally die via N2 being quick and painless, its going to be pretty ghastly to watch some guy hold his breath until blue, then start gasping for air, then go unconscious and die. Some guy will train himself for a 7+ minute breath hold. Other forms of execution aren't affected by prisoner choice -- seems an obviously cruel method to let people live as long as they can hold their breath.
Shooting someone in the heart IS oxygen deprivation... that's the purpose of the heart, to pump oxygen throughout your body. You'd have to destroy all 4 chamber at once, and they'd still have oxygen in their brain for a while, and you don't die from oxygen deprivation for up to 5 minutes. Cut out the bullets, and just remove the oxygen. It's a helluva lot cleaner.
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
You've apparently never been around a pig farm in real life. They make those sounds when their distressed by new things. Unfamiliar locations, being stuck in something. They dont make them from being suffocated by nitrogen. Nitrogen doesn't give any signals to the body there is a problem. You simply pass out. Google OSHA nitrogen accidents to find out how quickly and how dangerous it is.
A CO2 gas chamber is probably one of the worst possible ways to go. Suffocating in CO2 rings pretty much every alarm bell in an animal's head. Hypoxia by CO2 surplus is an incredibly distressing and painful way to go. I have no idea how anyone could refer to that as "humane". Of course those pigs are going crazy!
This is completely unlike Nitrogen displacement, which is found to be incredibly hazardous exactly because it triggers NO pain, panic, or flight response. Your mental capacity goes downhill steadily, imperceptibly, and painlessly, until without even realizing anything is wrong or amiss, you just lose consciousness, with zero chance of waking up before it kills you.
They wouldn't even have to tell you when its happening. You could sit down in a comfy chair, listening to your favorite music, while enjoying your last meal, with no idea when they were going to start changing the air in the room out. At some point you'd faceplant in your mashed potatoes and that'd be it. No pain, no table or chair to strap you to, no needles, it actually is a heck of a lot more humane than lethal injection or any of the other more popular methods. Even a firing squad is more humane than the electric chair or lethal injection!
Bonus: nitrogen is a heck of a lot cheaper than lethal injection drugs. (and they are getting really hard to obtain)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It's a basic principle of osmosis. Basically, osmosis means that if you have two different solutions (chemistry definition) that pass by each other with a semi-permeable membrane in between, that the parts of the solutions that can pass through the membrane will tend to equalize in concentration on both sides of the membrane.
When you breathe, there are two solutions (your blood and the air) that are separated by a semi-permeable membrane (your lungs). The air is mostly nitrogen (78%) and about about 21% oxygen in it. Your blood has oxygen and CO2 in it. The membrane in your lungs allows oxygen and CO2 to pass through it.
In the normal case, the amount of oxygen in your blood is less than the amount of oxygen in the air. The amount of CO2 in your blood is also higher than the amount of CO2 in the air. Your body takes the Oxygen out of your blood, converts it in to CO2 through metabolism, and puts the CO2 back in to your blood.
Since the concentration of oxygen in your blood is lower than the concentration of oxygen in your lungs, oxygen will move from the air in your lungs in to your blood until the two concentrations equalize. Same for CO2...The higher concentration of CO2 in your blood will move to the air in your lungs until the two concentrations equalize. Then you exhale the low-oxygen/high-CO2 air in your lungs and inhale fresh air...repeat.
In order for the above process to work, the membrane in your lungs has to be a two-way street. Oxygen needs to come in, CO2 needs to go out. The membrane is bidirectional.
The way a Nitrogen chamber works is that the gas in the nitrogen chamber is very close to 100% nitrogen. The percentage of both oxygen and CO2 in the air is nearly zero. You now breath this new solution in and osmosis works the same way. The oxygen and CO2 concentrations between the two solutions equalizes.
So you have blood returning to your lungs that has a high-concentration of CO2 and a low-concentration of Oxygen. The solution on the other side of the membrane in your lungs is pretty much 0% oxygen and 0% CO2. Since the concentrations want to equalize, this means that both CO2 AND oxygen from your blood is moving to the air in your lungs. Which you then exhale. This effectively causes oxygen to leave your body.
If the concentration of Oxygen in the blood returning to your lungs is at 16%, then when the oxygen in your blood equalizes with the 0% oxygen gas in your lungs, it causes you to now have 8% oxygen in your blood and 8% oxygen in your lungs. You now exhale causing that oxygen that was in your blood and now in your lungs to leave your body, inhaling a "fresh breath" of nearly 100% nitrogen...8% oxygen in your blood and 0% oxygen in your lungs will equalize at 4%...etc.
Holding your breath means the air in your lungs still has oxygen in it. 20% oxygen in your lungs (normal air), 16% oxygen in your blood. They will both equalize at 18%. Now when the blood comes around again, you've got 12% oxygen in your blood and 18% oxygen in your lungs...it equalizes at 15%...etc.
The rate at which the oxygen level in your blood lowers when you hold your breath is much less than the rate it lowers when you breath 100% nitrogen air.
Holding your breath does have the downside of also not exhaling the CO2 in your blood. It's the high concentrations of CO2 in your blood that cause the suffocation feeling. Holding your breath won't let the CO2 out of your lungs and blood. Breathing in Nitrogen causes the CO2 to respirate out of your body normally. This is why you don't feel like you're suffocating when you breath 100% nitrogen air. They say that your vision quickly fades, you shortly afterwards pass out, and then shortly after that die.
It's the same reason they tell you to put your oxygen mask on in a plane before you help others. You will pass out quite quickly, because your lungs change from an oxygen input system to an oxygen output system--your lungs work by osmosis. At 40,000 ft, you'll pass out in 15-20 seconds--whereas most people can hold your breath for 1-2 minutes (without training). Also keep in mind this is "useful consciousness", not death. You will be living, but unconscious, for a while longer. If the plane descends quickly enough, you'll simply wake up with no permanent effects.
What this means is that the prisoner could extend their life for 1-2 minutes by holding their breath. But eventually, they'll run out of oxygen either way, and it gets quite uncomfortable to hold your breath for an extended period of time due to the buildup of CO2 and lung reflexes.
You also wouldn't want to hold your breath during explosive decompression, because your lungs would be at risk of damage or rupture. See [2]. So either way, if you're at high altitude without oxygen or a suit, you're in serious trouble. Likewise if you're strapped to a table and people are just waiting for you to finally breathe and die.
Source:
[1] https://aviation.stackexchange...
(See the accepted answer there, although the FAA has updated their website).
[2] http://www.geoffreylandis.com/...
-=Lothsahn=-
Best idea is that the pilot donned his oxygen, took the plane up to high altitude, and depressurized the plane. As the evidence of the later parts of the flight match it being under autopilot control, he probably took off his supply once he put the plane onto its final course.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I think nitrous oxide would be a better choice. They might not die quickly, but they wouldn't care.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And we have a limited amount of Helium that we can use - and waste it on party balloons
A negligible amount of helium is used on "party balloons". Less than 5% of consumption, and it is usually low grade gas, contaminated with Argon, N2, H2, etc. that would otherwise likely be vented.
The biggest consumer of helium is cryogenics, followed by pressure testing and purging, followed by welding.
Applications of Helium
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
Lead is more effective, quicker too. Just saying.
Personally I'm staunchly against the so-called, "Death Penalty," for a number of reasons, and not necessarily those you'd think, on account of I don't think quite like most people, but that all said, the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...far simpler a task than say, ensuring there's a roof over every head, or food in every belly, etc. A high-powered bullet fired into the back of the head at point-blank range would be very effective, and reasonably humane if for some reason you wanted to murder people judicially, AND cared about that sort of thing. It'd also be cheap, and in this country, not hard to come-by.
If you like, call it death by lethal plumbum injection. Hell, that even sounds funny because to someone who doesn't know how to say "lead" in other languages, it sounds like death is being accomplished by shoving a stonefruit up someone's ass. (Plum-bum, get it?)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
I think they would die just as quickly, as long as O2 was completely displaced. The difference is they would know they are about to die and passing out that way, even though "high", could still be distressing. With just N2 you don't realize it's coming.
J
[...] the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
It has to feel like a clinical procedure, otherwise you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
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Holy shit!! First I find out dihydrogen monoxide is in nearly everything I eat and drink, now you're telling me this "nitrogen" stuff is in all of the air I'm breathing?
We're all fucked!!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Inert gas narcosis on air/nitrox doesn't become a significant concern until past 4ata / 100fsw. For air that's a PPN2 of 3.12. Breathing 100% N2 at 1 ata wouldn't even remotely induce any type of narcosis.
If you want the prisoner to enjoy his execution, you could put him in a hyperbaric chamber and pressurize it to about 6 atmospheres, then replace the gas with pure N2. PPN2 would go from 4.68 (moderate narcosis) to 6 (strong narcosis), as PPO2 went from 1.26 to 0.
As a diver, I've long said that if I'm diagnosed with a painful or debilitating terminal disease that leaves me sufficiently healthy for a while, I'd spend time with family until I got to just before the point that I didn't want to live any more, then I'd head for Little Cayman where I'd buy a boat, drive myself out to Bloody Bay wall, gear up and drop slowly into the abyss, enjoying the fish, then the narcosis, until I lost consciousness and died. Can't think of a better way to go.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'd personally prefer an honest bullet. Men should at least be able to die with some kind of dignity... I don't understand all this hand wringing about "suffering". I'd suffer more with some patronizing group around me pretending they are doing something humane.
Hammurabi was a hack. Who can call "an eye for an eye" justice?
Human society needs to face the fact that they aren't fit to enact "justice". No system on Earth does anything except punish and harm. There's no understanding of rehabilitation, cause and effect, or other social influences that lead people down the road of crime in the first place. No legal system on this planet is capable of reducing crime because they're too busy deciding on punishments to consider the *cause* behind a person's choices. When someone commits a heinous crime, it is a sign that society has failed that person. Something fucked up in that person's life and they were robbed of a normal life, with opportunities, friends, and meaning.
But you won't hear or read that in any court room. They don't give a fuck about anything except re-election.
Hammurabi a hack? What are you talking about? This shit seems SUPER fair:
"If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death."
"If a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his fingers."
"If any one brings an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death."
"If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death."
Bleeding to death is painful. The terrible deaths have to be minimized because of the rules against cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection is the biggest joke of all, paralyzing someone while, as far as the best can tell, giving a sensation of being on fire from the inside.
Execution isn't about punishment, it's about preventing recidivism. If it was about punishment, we'd have judicial torture.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
Murder means the death is immoral or unwarranted. Even bad guys might be convicted of "man slaughter" instead of "murder". We deliberately kill people found guilty of certain crimes; we don't deliberately murder them. We are short on ways to humanely end a life.
There are three ethical sticky points on capital punishment. Mistakes do happen, so any execution must take place after sufficient time has elapsed to discover such grave mistakes. Secondly, the execution must be as humane as humanly possible. We will not do death by a thousand cuts, for example, because that would be too cruel. Thirdly, some people argue that any execution is immoral.
My understanding is that we did away with firing squad out of sympathy for the executioners, not sympathy for the condemned.
Though, I recall reading that in a firing squad, one of the rifles is loaded with blanks, so that the shooters can take some solace in being not sure if they killed the person.
The idea that the death penalty is a deterrent is ill-conceived. It assumes that people who commit murder are rational and consider the long-term consequences of their actions, and that they think they are likely to get caught. But the reality is most murders are committed in the heat of a moment, by people with poor impulse control and little forethought. And when it's not in the heat of the moment, the killer generally thinks that they will get away with the crime. The severity of the penalty has absolutely no bearing on the murderer's thinking (or lack thereof) in either case.
In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.
Unfortunately even imprisonment kind of falls in that category -- you can't return time to a person's life either.
The only thing they can return should an inmate be exonerated is their honor and standing in society.. and unfortunately we're moving away from that as well. For example, many applications and other forms that used to ask "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" now ask "have you ever been arrested?" -- so false arrests, crimes for which you were found not guilty, crimes for which you were exonerated.. all of those now get punished in addition to the already questionable practice of discriminating against people who have finished paying their debt to society and are supposed to be treated like free men and women again.