I think Texas should manufacture its own supply of execution
drugs. As the nation’s most active death
penalty state, the State of Texas has encountered a shortage of the lethal
drug, pentobarbital, required to carry out the death penalty.
The shortage is primarily due to European drug companies who
no longer want to be a supplier to the US death penalty. Manufacturing these drugs is a conflict of
interest for them, as members of the medical profession are taught to save
lives, not end them. Those that do
produce the drugs are somewhat underground and secret, desiring to be kept
anonymous so they do not suffer any repercussions of interest groups who might
disagree with capital punishment.
The State of Tennessee has already declared the electric
chair as a backup alternative to executions in the event enough lethal drugs
are not available for scheduled executions.
Missouri is considering doing away with lethal injections and bringing
back the use of the gas chamber, although there are mixed feelings of how this
would be received by the general public. Missouri’s proposed solution is for their
state to begin producing lethal injection drugs, and I feel Texas should do the
same.
The accomplishment would be taking the secrecy out of
it. We live in a capital punishment
state, so why should the drugs used for execution be a secret? We all know it’s
going on; we see it in mass media all the time. Perhaps the exact location of production
need not be revealed in order to protect workers against protest, but I think
we all know the government is capable of covering up the location and
whereabouts of just about anything if they really want to. Texas could produce enough drugs to supply
other states and use the revenue generated to improve our prison system.
From a political standpoint, I think this would be a highly
publicized and criticized issue. I am
sure public and private interest groups would crawl out of the woodwork to
express their opinions, but I feel certain the idea would be approved…..thank
you Republicans!
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ReplyDeleteHere's my commentary on Brenda's post.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with her stance. She believes that by allowing the sell of their execution drugs, the state will allow transparency to their public and therefore not allowing secrets within the state when it comes down to the execution drugs Also, it is believed that it will proceed the execution process much more smoothly than having the electric chair execution, for example.. I disagree with this stance because we have to realize that execution drugs can have a domino effect. In fact, if the state start manufacturing these drugs, thugs & criminals will try to get their hands on it. One or two solid contacts at the manufacturers of these drugs and you can get your hands on it; for a very low price. This will eventually increase the crime rate in Texas, and therefore have the domino effect I have explained. If European drug companies do not wish to cooperate with the country anymore when it comes down to selling the state execution drugs, then the state should find another exporter of such drugs; private companies they can privately deal with. Bringing these materials in cities or around them in the country will only cause more danger to the public. These are the reasons why I disagree with her article.