Three of the largest manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas in the US have barred their products from being used in executions, following Alabama’s recent killing of the death row inmate Kenneth Smith using a previously untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia.
The three companies have confirmed to the Guardian that they have put in place mechanisms that will prevent their nitrogen cylinders falling into the hands of departments of correction in death penalty states. The move by the trio marks the first signs of corporate action to stop medical nitrogen, which is designed to preserve life, being used for the exact opposite – killing people.
The green shoots of a corporate blockade for nitrogen echoes the almost total boycott that is now in place for medical drugs used in lethal injections. That boycott has made it so difficult for death penalty states to procure drugs such as pentobarbital and midazolam that a growing number are turning to nitrogen as an alternative killing technique.
Now, nitrogen producers are engaging in their own efforts to prevent the abuse of their products. The march has been led by Airgas, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquide.
The company announced publicly in 2019 that supplying nitrogen for the purposes of execution was not consistent with its values. The move followed Oklahoma becoming the first state to adopt nitrogen hypoxia as a capital punishment protocol in 2015.
“Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution,” the company said in a statement.
Nitrogen hypoxia involves forcing a prisoner to breathe nitrogen, and nitrogen alone, through an airtight gas mask. The procedure leads to oxygen deprivation and death.
The four states that currently have nitrogen hypoxia on their books – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma – claim it is a quick and humane death. But when Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using this method in January, witnesses recounted how the prisoner, Smith, writhed and convulsed on the gurney for several minutes.
“His took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head,” a reporter from the Montgomery Advertiser said.
Two other major nitrogen manufacturers have also confirmed to the Guardian that they are restricting sales of their gas. Air Products said that it had established “prohibited end uses for our products, which includes the use of any of our industrial gas products for the intentional killing of any person (including nitrogen hypoxia)”.
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