Chris Henry: Use suicide drugs to carry out death penalty

After reading the countless stories of Brittany Maynard, including The Bee’s, I find it interesting that many editorial writers are speaking favorably about passing laws that would allow the same end-of-life options currently available in Oregon. This thought lends itself to a different topic. Here in California, we haven’t executed any death-row inmates for years because the lethal injection has been alleged to cause the convict pain. Ignoring the obvious argument that a death-row inmate deserves such an end, the suicide of Brittany Maynard leads me to one simple and logical thought. If the lethal dose she was provided by a physician is considered humane enough for “assisted suicide,” why couldn’t California simply adopt the same dosage for those truly deserving of the death penalty?

This story was originally published November 5, 2014 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Chris Henry: Use suicide drugs to carry out death penalty."