Lethal Injection: Is it Really Cruel and Unusual?

The year of 2006 brought many controversies over the method used in the Untied States to execute inmates, lethal Injection. Lethal Injection was first introduced in the United States in the year 1977 by the state of Oklahoma, and on December 2, 1982, the first person to receive lethal injection was Charles Brooks, by the state of Texas. Lethal injection would be a more "humane way" of executing people, replacing electrocution, the gas chamber, the firing squad, and hanging. Or so they thought.

Lethal injection consists of a three drug cocktail. According to Wikipedia the drugs used are as follows:
The intravenous injection is usually a mixture of compounds, designed to induce rapid unconsciousness followed by death through paralysis of respiratory muscles and/or by inducing cardiac hyperpolarization. The execution of the condemned in most states involves three separate injections:

Sodium thiopental: to induce a state of unconsciousness intended to last while the other two injections take effect.
Pancuronium/Tubocurarine: to stop all muscle movement except the heart. This causes muscle paralysis, collapse of the diaphragm, and would eventually cause death by asphyxiation.

Potassium chloride: to stop the heart from beating, and thus cause death: see cardiac arrest.

The trouble with lethal injection is that it cannot be performed by medical personal, because of the Medical Oath to preserve life's that reads as follows:

Hippocratic Oath -- Classical Version

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein. From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.

Recent contraversies concerning lethal injection include:

Pavulon,which was a brand name for pancuronium bromide has been taken off the market in the USA, and the American Veterinary Medical Association for the euthanasia of animals does not allow it's use, and is banned for the use of animals in at least 19 states, although it's used for inmate executions. This drug can cause extreme suffering and act like a "veil" to witnesses because of it's paralyzing effect. This drug can make it impossible to be able to tell whether an animal is in fact conscious or unconscious.Pancuronium bromide can render an inmate conscious and aware but unable to speak or move.
Pancuronium bromide is one of three drugs used for lethal injection. The first, sodium pentathol, acts as an anesthetic to put the inmate to sleep, pancuronium bromide then paralyzes the muscle system so that the inmate is unable to move, the third drug potassium chloride stops the heart.
The ethical debate in medicine is that a physician who performs the injection is violating their medical oath to preserve life, and therefor technicians and others are performing the executions, and have caused many "botched" executions. They are administering drugs that normally a physician would do.
Studies have showed that autopsy results of executed inmates in various states found that 43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood so low that they may have remained conscious to the end. The medical journal editorialized, "it would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins." This goes against the 8th amendment which states: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

(http://www.petitiononline.com/needles/petition.html) From my petition to ban lethal injection.

Many botched executions have taken place. Veins in the arms of former drug addicts collapse and can cause complications. There was a recent botched execution in Florida on December 14, 2006. While trying to execute condemned inmate Angel Nieves Diaz, the lethal cocktail had to be administered twice, and took 34 minuets to kill him. The States of Florida and California have halted all execution, upon review of this method.

With all this information we know about lethal injection, will this deadly mixture of drugs be banned in The United States in the upcoming year? Or will we continue to execute people knowing this method is indeed cruel and unusual. I don't think there is a "Humane Execution", and that is the biggest oxymoron I have ever heard.