Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen

Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.

The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.

Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.

  • @Notorious_handholder
    40•1 year ago

    Years ago when I was in a bad place in life I attempted suicide using a tank of nitrogen and an oven bag. Thankfully I was stupid as hell and didn’t tie the bag properly or something. So when I passed out the bag managed to come off somehow. Still not entirely sure how it happened but either way I’m thankful it did and I managed to survive for better days.

    Anyways, Im telling you this to let you know I can very much confirm that breathing nitrogen is painless and was no different than regular breathing.

    Your body only starts the alarm bells when it can’t exchange out the co2 in your lungs. It can’t really tell the difference between pure nitrogen and some other gases coming in vs the optimal mixture we need to breath. So the alarms never really go off. There’s more to the science behind it, but it’s kind of a glaring flaw evolution left in our bodys survival system that can be taken advantage of including for use in anesthetic.

    • BrianTheFirst
      8•1 year ago

      So did it feel like you just went to sleep and then woke up?

      Glad you did such a terrible job of it!

      • @Notorious_handholder
        19•1 year ago

        Yeah sort of. At first I started feeling very drunk, but not like normal drunk. I can’t really think of good analogy other than it was like half way in between drunk and a small amount of anesthetic maybe?

        It was this slow dip into unconscious, it wasn’t like sleeping where I’m vaguely aware of the passage of time. But it wasn’t the instant knock out of anesthetic or normal unconscious either. It was like lowering myself into a pool if that make sense. Wasn’t a bad feeling, just kind of different. Had an awful migraine that lasted a couple of days afterwards though.

        Thanks I’m extremely happy everday with my failure! Lol