Dr. Armin Walser, a chemist who helped to invent a sedative drug that is intended to help people's lives easier now becomes a drug that has been used for sedation during lethal injections nationwide. After decades of entering the market, the drug known as midazolam is a product that is more often used during colonoscopies and the cardiac catheterizations.

According to The New York Times, Dr. Walser said that he did not make the drug for purpose and added that he is not a friend of death penalty execution. The path of midazolam from Dr. Walser's laboratory has been used at least six country's execution chambers that have been filled with confidentiality, political, scientific argument, and court challenges.

Since November 2005, midazolam was the first of the three drugs in the state's lethal injection. Midazolam is intended to deliver unconsciousness to the prisoner and keep him from experiencing pain later in the execution, while the other drugs will carry out to stop the prisoner's breathing, as well as the heart.

Drugs identified midazolam as a type of a drug that helps to reduce anxiety or used as an anesthesia before performing certain medical procedures. Midazolam is a benzodiazepine, which works in a central nervous system that may cause sleepiness, muscle relaxation, and short-term memory loss. Midazolam is basically administered through injection at the doctor's office, clinic, or hospital.

Using midazolam in a long period of time or in high doses might lead to addiction. Some might be experiencing withdrawal symptoms after a person suddenly stop taking midazolam that includes palpitation, hallucinations, muscle cramps, seizures, stomach cramps, sweating, tremor, and vomiting

The drug's critics have found a limited consolation in the courts that includes the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the cases from Alabama and Arkansas last month, which both areas include midazolam as their lethal injection protocols. However, the proponents also recognize that midazolam is far from a drug choice for executions, yet the advocates blame the abolitionist for leaving the states with limited choices.

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