Move follows Alabama’s recent killing of death row inmate Kenneth Smith using previously untested method
Move follows Alabama’s recent killing of death row inmate Kenneth Smith using previously untested method
Three of the largest manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas in the US have barred their products from being used in executions, following Alabama’s recent killing of the death row inmate Kenneth Smith using a previously untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia.
The three companies have confirmed to the Guardian that they have put in place mechanisms that will prevent their nitrogen cylinders falling into the hands of departments of correction in death penalty states. The move by the trio marks the first signs of corporate action to stop medical nitrogen, which is designed to preserve life, being used for the exact opposite – killing people.
The green shoots of a corporate blockade for nitrogen echoes the almost total boycott that is now in place for medical drugs used in lethal injections. That boycott has made it so difficult for death penalty states to procure drugs such as pentobarbital and midazolam that a growing number are turning to nitrogen as an alternative killing technique.
Now, nitrogen producers are engaging in their own efforts to prevent the abuse of their products. The march has been led by Airgas, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquide.
Nitrogen hypoxia sounds like one of the best ways to die, without pain or panic, but I completely understand why no company wants to be the supplier of the means of executing people. Small volume, small profits, extreme controversy. What’s to want there?
AirGas, Air Products, and Matheson are the manufacturers, for anyone interested.
My job's vendor is also mentioned:
Other manufacturers of medical nitrogen in the US were more circumspect. Linde, a global multinational founded in Germany and headquartered in the UK, would not say whether it was willing to sell its product for use in US death chambers and declined to comment.
I wonder which tactic Republicans will take when it inevitably turns out they're buying it from China- lie that they're doing it or insist that they have to due to the evil liberal elite?
This is an honest question. In the US we probably put down thousands of household pets each month. Many of them have their owners right there beside them holding their paw. It isn't tramatic for the pet or the owner.
How can it be this difficult for us to humanely execute a human?
Nitrogen is almost 80% of air so it’s hardly in short supply. Also why would you need medical grade? This is like alcohol swabs at the IV insertion site for lethal injection. They just don’t want the bad publicity of being associated, but it’s not going to stop anything.
I think the death penalty should just go away but if you're going to have it I don't understand why prisons are so gong-ho about all these complicated execution methods.
Why don't they just shoot people? That would work. It simple, it's quick, and it involves cool guns, which shouldn't really be a consideration but it's the US so it is.
Seems sensible enough. Even if you agreed that there should be a death penalty and nitrogen is a humane way to do it the tiny amount of money you could potentially make supplying it would not be worth the potential PR hit.
I mean, I'm glad, but at the same time, I can't help but wonder why these corporations care, when they're killing people in so many other ways outside of prisons.
How about two deathrow inmates are put together in a room with a whole bunch of things that look like door knobs but are actually one way gas knobs. You open and they don't close. The gas part is easy just go to a welding shop. Tell them it's for "welding". They'll understand.