What if when giving a death row inmate the lethal injection, the poison was replaced with psilocin or DMT? When he came down, he would be released from captivity and given a second chance. Let's discuss.
Posted Jan 22, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC
this is genius
There are far more challenges to a released inmate than simply his own sense of morality, life, and self. Things like job skills, social acceptance and housing are going to work against any person released from incarceration, let alone one who was on death row.
While it is potentially possible that the experience could be rewarding for the inmate, the drugs only change how he sees the world. How the world sees him will not change, and this is why I don't think it would be a successful endeavor. There are many people who are "reformed", and yet they fall back into old habits. And what can we expect? Our society isn't structured to give people second chances. You may have saved a man from death, but to what life are you sending him, and how likely do you think it is he will have found the strength necessary to carry on with his new outlook due to one heroic dose, in spite of all the odds stacked against him and his past experiences with society?
It's a nice idea, but it just isn't practical. Perhaps in a different reality where we treat inmates with more compassion and make attempts at true rehabilitation this could work, but really what you are hinting at is using psychedelics to help heal mental health issues. That, my friend, is a good instinct. Applied in a controlled setting with a long term therapy system, perhaps we could see the benefits clearly and help heal our society.
I agree with you. With the current system it would be pretty impractical.
Now, as idea, I love it. Totally love it. But this psychedelic experience should be accompanied of additional rehabilitation efforts.
Unless he was told what it was and had previous knowledge of the substance, he would probably freak out and it wouldn't be beneficial. Furthermore i don't think something equivalent to a shroom trip or IM dmt would be enough to completely reform the person.
I'm talking heroic dosage. Think about it, this inmate would have had plenty of time to accept the notion that they were going to die. They would have the mistakes they've made in their life on their mind, and an extremely spiritual experience combined with exoneration of their sentence would seem in their mind like they were given a second chance at life. I imagine they wouldn't take it so lightly. What do you think?
Sure, it's possible. But in no way is it a guarantee, and it heavily depends on the person, their experience with psychedelics, and how open minded they are. It's an interesting idea but I don't see it working on a practical level.
I've given this more thought, and i am starting to see where you're coming from. The Ayahuasca experience could possibly work, but with people being so different and having completely different reactions to the substance, it may not work at all.
If someone took dmt with the intent to reform so they stop murdering or other crimes worthy of the death sentence it may work of course, but releasing criminals after they say the drug has worked could turn out badly.
The idea is actually very interesting. Don't know why never thought of that myself! I just don't think it would work just that way, giving them a huge dose and then releasing them after the experience. But it is a start, it would be nice to study the possibilities. I do think psychedelics and other drugs can be a powerful tool in our societies, if we just wanted to try....