[Magdalen] Arkansas Catch-up.

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Hanging is actually pretty quick and effective.

I don't know why they don't just give the person a massive dose of
morphine. Heck, buy some heroin off the street and OD him (or her) with
that.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> *TMI Warning, don't read if easily grossed out.
>
> The thing is, current drug "cocktails" are very inefficient and very slow
> working. They work, basically, by depressing the respiratory drive in the
> brain, which takes awhile. This is why you see reports of the person
> Writing, "snoring", and making other noises during the process. It can take
> as long as 20-30 minutes for death to occur. Whether or not the person
> actually feels distress is open to debate (I tend to think they do, on some
> level, even though they are unconscious), but it is most certainly
> unpleasant for the observers.
>
> Another problem has been venous access. Recently, many medical personnel
> have been refusing to participate in executions on moral/religious grounds.
> This leaves the prisons with the problem of nobody with the ability to
> place the IV catheter correctly so the drugs can be administered. In one
> execution a few years ago, it was discovered *after the fact* that the IV
> catheter had been improperly placed and that the drugs, which included a
> potassium compound, had gone into the surrounding tissue instead. Anyone
> who's ever had an IV containing potassium knows how that stuff can burn,
> especially if your IV infiltrates. Add to that the problem that many
> inmates on death row may have a history of IV drug abuse, which will muck
> up your veins pretty badly, often to the point where there's no way an IV
> is going in there at all. I'v tried to start IVs on people whose veins have
> been overused and abused, and there's no going there. No time, no way.
>
> And of course, the reason Arkansas, like other states, is panicking about
> the expiration date of one of the drugs is that most American drug
> companies are refusing to supply drugs for executions. Period. The end.
> Funny how they get all moral about that, but don't mind signing your death
> warrant (or impoverishing your family) if you've got cancer and can't
> afford your chemo drug. /s
>
> Some state legislature (was it Mississippi?) just voted to re-establish the
> firing squad for executions. I suppose if you just *have* to have
> executions, a firing squad is much more efficient than the current drug
> overdose. I can't say what it does to or for the executioners, but I don't
> think it's any more cruel and unusual. Maybe less so, in the long run.
>
> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 2:51 PM, M J _Mike_ Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com>
> wrote:
>
> > In April, Arkansas will conduct four double executions in the space of a
> > ten-day period.
> >
> > I'm sorry, I said that wrong.
> >
> > In April, Arkansas will conduct four double state-sponsored murders in
> the
> > space of a ten-day period.
> >
> > The reason for the haste, apparently, is the soon-upcoming expiration of
> > one of the drugs in the three-drug cocktail.
> >
> > For the sake of those souls on the table, I pray that all three drugs
> work
> > "properly", that staff knows what the hell they're doing (there hasn't
> been
> > an execution in Arkansas since 2005), and that it all goes swiftly and
> > without pain.
> >
> > What a country of moral degenerates America was, and in many states,
> still
> > is.  Death, death, death.  More guns!  No socialized healthcare!  More
> > executions!
> >
>