There needs to be an investigation into cruel and unusual treatment. This is not a prison resilient to tried and true methods of execution. This was a human experiment with drugs never approved for this level of lethality.
Executed Ohio killer Dennis McGuire took 15-minutes to die with never-before-tried drugs (click here)
The two drug combination was used for the first time on the convicted killer and rapist, who stabbed pregnant woman Joy Stewart to death in 1989.
AP
January 16, 2014
Lucasville, Ohio - A condemned Ohio inmate appearted to gasp several times and took more than 15 minutes to die Thursday as the was executed with a combination of drugs never before tried in the U.S.
AP
January 16, 2014
Lucasville, Ohio - A condemned Ohio inmate appearted to gasp several times and took more than 15 minutes to die Thursday as the was executed with a combination of drugs never before tried in the U.S.
Death row inmate Dennis McGuire made several loud snorting or snoring sounds during one of the longest executions since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999.
Ohio officials used intravenous does of two drugs, the sedative midazolam (Versed, a very short acting preoperative sedation/anxiolysis with anterograde amnesia, used in procedures requiring light sedation) and hydromorphone (Dilaudid which is a man-made compound similiar to morphine.) to put McGruire to death for the 1989 rape and fatal stabbing of a pregnant woman, Joy Stewart....
Versed is a benzodiazepine in the same family as Valium or lorazepam (Ativan). It is never intended to lethal purposes. Below is the prescribed amount for sedation. It frequently is administered during minor procedures in a hospital such as a triple-lumen catheter placement. Vital signs are monitored with patients during these procedures. The drug wears off after 12 to 15 minutes. Recovery from the anesthesia is extremely quick and why it is used.
<55 years without premedication: 300-350 mcg/kg IV injection over 20-30 seconds; wait 2-3 minutes to evaluate sedative effect after each dose adjustment; may use increments of 25% of initial dose PRN to complete induction; may use up to 0.6 mg/kg total dose in resistant cases, but such dosing may prolong recovery
What Ohio is doing is PLAYING with the potential of these drugs to overdose the inmate in order to end his life. Overdosing does not end a life, it suppresses the respiratory centers and even slows heart rate, but, overdosing to end a life usually requires high levels of a drug and Versed is rarely known to kill anyone from an overdoes. In the fifteen minutes that it took for this inmate to die Versed had already worn off.
Dilaudid is a pain reliever. It works similar to morphine in adhering to opiate receptors of the central nervous system. Basically, it diminishes the signals to the brain that interpret pain. It is like a blocking agent. The higher the does the more molecules available to adhere to the opiate receptors. What Ohio is attempting to do is overdoes the inmate to provide enough effect to suppress respirations and heart rate to induce death. There is no known amount of Dilaudid to cause death. It is highly individualized as to how much Dilaudid is required to kill someone.
Dilaudid, like morphine, is processed out of the blood stream through the liver. The liver when eliminating these drugs reacts as if they were toxic. The liver will create higher levels of cells to eliminate the understood toxin.
The liver actually produces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as it experiences toxins. That is what causes 'drug resistance' best understood with cancer sufferers. They will need higher and higher amounts of the drug in order to achieve the pain relief they are seeking. The reason for the higher doses in such people is because the liver produces more of these organelles to remove the 'toxin' faster and faster. It is a survival mechanism of the human body.
The inmate may have been exposed to prior doses of Dilaudid or may have been a drug abuser, therefore, he probably had developed more ER, thus the ineffectiveness of the drug used to facilitate death.
There is no research that proves Dilaudid will cause death at any dose. People who abuse drugs can die of Dilaudid overdoes, BUT, that is because they understand their own bodies resistance to the drug and can take enough to commit suicide or they took too much unwittingly to achieve better pain relief. But, for a physician to be able to write a one time dose that would cause the death of a patient doesn't exist.
The execution today was a human rights abuse and in violation of USA law which prohibits cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners and in their execution sentence.
What occurred today was GUESSING. There is absolutely NO RESEARCH on the amount required to kill a human being. There is no way to know because everyone's physiology is different and their exposure to these drugs makes for and unpredictable outcome.
Versed is a benzodiazepine in the same family as Valium or lorazepam (Ativan). It is never intended to lethal purposes. Below is the prescribed amount for sedation. It frequently is administered during minor procedures in a hospital such as a triple-lumen catheter placement. Vital signs are monitored with patients during these procedures. The drug wears off after 12 to 15 minutes. Recovery from the anesthesia is extremely quick and why it is used.
<55 years without premedication: 300-350 mcg/kg IV injection over 20-30 seconds; wait 2-3 minutes to evaluate sedative effect after each dose adjustment; may use increments of 25% of initial dose PRN to complete induction; may use up to 0.6 mg/kg total dose in resistant cases, but such dosing may prolong recovery
What Ohio is doing is PLAYING with the potential of these drugs to overdose the inmate in order to end his life. Overdosing does not end a life, it suppresses the respiratory centers and even slows heart rate, but, overdosing to end a life usually requires high levels of a drug and Versed is rarely known to kill anyone from an overdoes. In the fifteen minutes that it took for this inmate to die Versed had already worn off.
Dilaudid is a pain reliever. It works similar to morphine in adhering to opiate receptors of the central nervous system. Basically, it diminishes the signals to the brain that interpret pain. It is like a blocking agent. The higher the does the more molecules available to adhere to the opiate receptors. What Ohio is attempting to do is overdoes the inmate to provide enough effect to suppress respirations and heart rate to induce death. There is no known amount of Dilaudid to cause death. It is highly individualized as to how much Dilaudid is required to kill someone.
The liver actually produces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as it experiences toxins. That is what causes 'drug resistance' best understood with cancer sufferers. They will need higher and higher amounts of the drug in order to achieve the pain relief they are seeking. The reason for the higher doses in such people is because the liver produces more of these organelles to remove the 'toxin' faster and faster. It is a survival mechanism of the human body.
The inmate may have been exposed to prior doses of Dilaudid or may have been a drug abuser, therefore, he probably had developed more ER, thus the ineffectiveness of the drug used to facilitate death.
There is no research that proves Dilaudid will cause death at any dose. People who abuse drugs can die of Dilaudid overdoes, BUT, that is because they understand their own bodies resistance to the drug and can take enough to commit suicide or they took too much unwittingly to achieve better pain relief. But, for a physician to be able to write a one time dose that would cause the death of a patient doesn't exist.
The execution today was a human rights abuse and in violation of USA law which prohibits cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners and in their execution sentence.
What occurred today was GUESSING. There is absolutely NO RESEARCH on the amount required to kill a human being. There is no way to know because everyone's physiology is different and their exposure to these drugs makes for and unpredictable outcome.
