Three Largest Nitrogen Gas Manufacturers in the U.S. Prohibit Products from Use in Executions

As more states con­sid­er nitro­gen hypox­ia as an exe­cu­tion method, three of the largest man­u­fac­tur­ers in the U.S. have barred their prod­ucts intend­ed for life-sav­ing mea­sures from use in exe­cu­tions. 

“Airgas has not, and will not, sup­ply nitro­gen or oth­er inert gas­es to induce hypox­ia for the pur­pose of human exe­cu­tion,” the com­pa­ny, which is owned by the French multi­na­tion­al Air Liquid, announced fol­low­ing Oklahoma’s addi­tion of nitro­gen hypox­ia to their exe­cu­tion pro­to­col in 2015. The European Union’s anti-tor­ture reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it mem­ber states from export­ing goods intend­ed for use in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. 

Since Alabama’s exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith using the untest­ed method of nitro­gen hypox­ia, two oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers of med­ical-grade nitro­gen gas told The Guardian that their prod­ucts would be barred from such use. Air Products had ​“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).” Matheson Gas shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, telling The Guardian that the use of its nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions was ​“not con­sis­tent with our com­pa­ny val­ues.” 

“Drug man­u­fac­tur­ers don’t want their med­i­cines divert­ed and mis­used in tor­tur­ous exe­cu­tions and the mak­ers of nitro­gen gas share the same objec­tion: they do not want their prod­ucts to be used to kill,” said Maya Foa, joint exec­u­tive direc­tor of non-prof­it Reprieve, whose Lethal Injection Information Center has report­ed that over 60 glob­al health­care com­pa­nies world­wide have tak­en some form of action to ensure their prod­ucts are not used in exe­cu­tions. 

The wide­spread back­lash from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, pri­mar­i­ly in the last decade, has made it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for states to obtain some of the drugs used in exe­cu­tions. This has led states to inten­si­fy their secre­cy laws in order to main­tain the anonymi­ty of drug sup­pli­ers, explore alter­na­tive exe­cu­tion meth­ods, such as nitro­gen hypox­ia, and rein­tro­duce pre­vi­ous­ly aban­doned exe­cu­tion meth­ods. Following Mr. Smith’s exe­cu­tion, leg­is­la­tures in Nebraska, Ohio, and Louisiana intro­duced bills to adopt nitro­gen hypox­ia as an exe­cu­tion method; Bill HB6 was signed into law by Louisiana Governor Landry on March 5, 2024 and will go into effect on July 1, 2024. Louisiana now joins Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi in specif­i­cal­ly autho­riz­ing nitro­gen hypox­ia, while anoth­er four states autho­rize lethal gas with­out spec­i­fi­ca­tion.