How fast would it take for a person to die from a lethal injection of pentobarbital at a 5 gram dosage?

Question

I am doing debates in my government class on assisted suicide, and it would be a huge help to be able to argue the point of how fast a person can die and what the patient goes through when injected; meaning, the stages such as coma and those kind of things.

Answer 1

5 grams pentobarbital IV push would produce unconsciousness in less than 20 seconds and death in less than 5 minutes. Shortly after unconsciousness, you would have respiratory depression followed quickly by apnea. The apnea would cause a steady decline in pO2 and rise in pCO2. Eventually, there would by anoxia, brain death, cardiac arrest.

Answer 2

Very quickly. In dogs, the reported oral LD50 is 85 mg/kg and IV LD50 is 40 - 60 mg/kg (LD50 means Lethal Dose 50%). A 175 lb man is roughly 80kg. Five grams (5000mg) would be a dose of 62.5mg/kg, more than likely a fatal dose, especially if given IV push. When used to euthanize animals, it is often injected directly into the heart. It truly would put someone to "sleep" with respiratory depression and death quickly following.

Answer 3

Yeah right you are trying to KILL SOMEONE!