Only in America

Yesterday, Nebraska executed a man using fentanyl as part of a four drug cocktail. Nebraska’s “creativity” was necessitated by drug suppliers increasingly restricting the use of their drugs for purpose for which they were not intended, such as executions. Because of those restrictions, many of the most recent executions have resulted in tortuous, painful, extended deaths, one of which lasted for two hours.

Fentanyl, of course, is the opioid that is currently responsible for tens of thousands of overdoses and thousands of deaths in this country as the opioid crisis continues to worsen. Only in America would someone look at a public health catastrophe like this and decide it would be a great way to execute people. Perhaps we should give these prisoners the option of getting executed by the illegal drug of their choice.

Of course, only in America would we think that the answer to a public health catastrophe like gun violence is to actually give people more guns.