Papers published in recent years reported that inadequate dosages of the drugs used in the current three-drug lethal injection method used on death-row inmates across the United States have led to complications when the sentence is carried out.

The three-drug lethal injection method was improvised by Jay Chapman, an Oklahoma state medical examiner, and has been used to execute human inmates across the United States for almost 40 years. Since its creation in 1977, it has not been looked into and refined even with the simplest scientific studies. To use the process on animals in the states where humans are executed would prove unlawful.

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Preferably, each of the constituents in the traditional three-drug mixture of lethal injections should be adequate enough to distinguish the life of its recipient. The three ingredients include pancuronium bromide as the paralyzing agent, sodium thiopental as the anesthetic and potassium chloride as the heart-stopper. Theoretically, the cocktail of drugs is adequate, however, real situations, the result is much different.

While most U.S. states are vigilant to protect the information about its lethal injections, the execution data that researchers are able to take note of shows that the amounts of the drugs administered are not enough to kill.

In 2005, researchers published a paper in "The Lancet" that looked into the toxicology reports of 49 prisoners that were executed in North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

Out of the 49 inmates, 43 showed concentrations of thiopental in the blood that was lower than the dosage required for surgery. Out of the 43, 21 prisoners had levels of the drug in their blood low enough to be "consistent with awareness" while the procedure was being carried out, the scientists noted.

Generally, the consistency of lethal injections is difficult to gauge as "in most U.S. executions, executioners have no anesthesia training, drugs are administered remotely with no monitoring for anesthesia, data are not recorded and no peer review is done," the authors of a paper published in 2007 wrote.

The researchers also uncovered that the dosages of the potassium chloride and sodium thiopental are not adequate enough for a quick death, leaving death-row inmates dying through prolonged, chemically induced asphyxiation by the pancurioum bromide that causes paralysis.

"Even if lethal injection is administered without technical error, those executed may experience suffocation," the authors wrote. Thus, "'the conventional view of lethal injection as an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable.'"

TagsDeath Sentence, Arizona, inmates, Inmate, execution, Drugs, Paralysis