ELI5: Why are we able to "painlessly" put down our pets with drugs, but often botch lethal injections?

It's because no politician is seriously going to sanction overdose by opiate as a method of execution.

That's kind of what I was getting at. No one wants to have that sort of conversation taint their campaign or chances for reelection. Also absolutely the government has it's own rules, but my argument for them not using heroin is because the death penalty is such a hot-button issue with a lot of public scrutiny. What would happen if people found out the cocktail they use is actually heroin? And, since heroin is supposedly illegal, how has the government regulated and refined it from the street version? They wouldn't use common shit from some slum in south LA would they, bough covertly from drug addicts too high to know what they were making? And then doesn't that mean some research has been put into the most optimal (read: financially) best option? And who funded it? Tax payers?

The government absolutely gets away with what they can, but the real people in charge are also shrewd enough to realize when it's advantageous to play by the rules.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread Parent