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.

  • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If ever I would need to be killed, this would be my preferred method of leaving the earth.

    Happy to see them try it, even though I am against executing people.

    With hypoxia, you get euphoria prior to death. No suffering, no pain, just a little high to send you off this earth.

      • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Indeed. I have read that the reason we don’t is because it takes too long.

        That’s why they use CO2 asphyxiation, but in my opinion, that’s torture.

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          CO2 asphyxiation is extremely unpleasant. That is absolutely torture, and it is not in any way shape or form an ethical way to euthanize anything.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        When people leave this earth they are welcomed onto the yearly space rocket that asends into the heavens. After seven days and seven nights of travel they land on Pluto, where the big farm in the sky is. That’s where your pets and grandparents are. Pluto is called Earth3 by the people on it.

      • Redhotkurt@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s a common English phrase that refers to dying. The use of “earth” uncapitalized refers to the ground or land, not the planet Earth. You might be more familiar with the variant “leave this earthly plane,” which, by the way, has nothing to do with airplanes.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        sounds like someone never learned about Xenu and the other earths.

        Tsk tsk tsk. What are they teaching in school these days…