Fentanyl eyed to execute US inmates
WASHINGTON — Fentanyl, a potent drug playing a major role in the US opioid crisis described by Donald Trump as a "plague," is now under consideration for use in lethal cocktails to execute inmates.
The states of Nevada and Nebraska are planning to supply prison executioners with the opioid painkiller — which killed more than 20,000 people in the United States in 2016 — drawing criticism from doctors and activists who call the move a dangerous human experiment.
They warn of serious risks posed to death row prisoners, who effectively become guinea pigs against their will.
Fentanyl, which also acts as an anesthetic, is 50 times more powerful than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine.
The bid to use fentanyl as a capital punishment tool is due to a shortage of drugs normally used in lethal injections and is not grounded in scientific analysis, according to Deborah Denno, an expert on lethal injection at Fordham University.
"The use of fentanyl by states greatly heightens the risk of a botched — and therefore painful — execution in the ways that past execution drugs have demonstrated," she told AFP.
"Each new drug introduces yet another reckless exercise by states in selecting protocols based solely on their accessibility."
The acute shortage of deadly drugs has lasted several years, as several major laboratories refuse to stock US prisons to avoid the bad PR of being associated with the death penalty.
Lethal injections are generally carried out with three substances administered in succession: the first induces a coma, the second paralyzes, and the third stops the heart.
But in several recent executions the first drug failed to render prisoners fully unconscious, causing them intense suffering prior to death.
"Over the past forty years of their existence, lethal injection executions have never been more chaotic and irresponsible than they are now," Denno said.
Last month the state of Ohio had to halt the execution of a critically ill convict, after prison officers failed to find a vein strong enough to receive the lethal dose.
The controversy over lethal substances is contributing to the slowed pace of executions in the United States, a trend confirmed by a report released yesterday by the independent Death Penalty Information Center.