For those of us who don’t believe the death penalty is a wonderfully utilitarian method of ridding society of those we despise, any port in a storm will do.  So the  announcement by Hospira that it’s out of the sodium thiopental business brings some transitory comfort.

The sole American manufacturer of an anesthetic widely used in lethal injections said Friday that it would no longer produce the drug, a move likely to delay more executions and force states to adopt new drug combinations.

The manufacturer, Hospira Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., had originally planned to resume production of the drug, sodium thiopental, this winter at a plant in Italy, giving state corrections departments hope that the scarcity that began last fall would ease.

But the Italian authorities said they would not permit export of the drug if it might be used for capital punishment. Hospira said in a statement Friday that its aim was to serve medical customers, but that “we could not prevent the drug from being diverted to departments of corrections” and the company did not want to expose itself to liability in Italy.

It’s fascinating that the issue du jour isn’t the propriety of putting human beings to death, or the failings of a system that’s shown itself incapable of distinguishing guilt from innocence, but whether those charged with pushing the plunger can get their mitts on enough drugs to make it happen. 

Jeff Gamso, whose connection the death penalty defense is far deeper and more personal than mine,  refuses to call the concoction with which people are executed a “cocktail,” as if it’s the precursor to a party where all but one have a grand old time.  Jeff recognizes this for what it is.

There’s nothing particularly noble in Hospira’s decision.  It’s a business call.  But when killing is bad for business, maybe that’s something to consider.  (Governor Quinn?  Are you reading this?)

Meanwhile, Ohio says it has enough thiopental to kill Frank Spisak next month.  It’s been coy about whether it’ll be able to kill Johnny Baston in March.  But our economy sucks.  Kasich needs to figure out a way to balance the budget.  Getting out of the killing business would be a good start.  For Ohio, like for Hospira, it would be good business. 

Making drugs is nothing more than a business decision for a drug maker.  While Hospira may not be thrilled that its drugs are used to kill rather than heal, it’s still running a shop that focuses on the bottom line.  Maybe the problem is we just don’t kill enough around here to make sodium thiopental a money maker.  If only someone figured out that it was good for restless legs syndrome, that could change everything.

The three drug regimen for execution is argued as necessary to avoid the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.  While we put them to death, they should feel pain.  Of course, given the nature of death, who knows what they feel, or where they go, or what we are really doing.  We view it from the living side of the River Styx.  For all we know, we could be dead wrong about the whole thing.

As much as I am against the death penalty, my belief is that we’re doing it wrong.  Not for the sake of those we kill, but for the sake of this who remain, the ones who walk away feeling that justice has been done.

By sanitizing the execution, we assuage the conscience of those who only view the death penalty through squinted eyes.  They take comfort in knowing that we are not cruel when we execute people.  We are humane as we kill people.  Even to killers who deserve to die like dogs, we are humane.  Aren’t we special? 

Few of us have seen the life ebb out of a human being.  Few will ever sit there, knowing that the smell of death will soon fill our nostrils.  For every person who believes that this is justice, they should be compelled to face their decision, watch it, smell it, feel it.  It’s just too easy, far too easy, to chat about how a person needs killing from the comfort of a kitchen table with the aroma of home cooking filling the air.

So the nation is short on sodium thiopental.  Italy won’t allow it to be exported here for use in killing people.  Great Britain isn’t keen on it either.  Clearly, those old-line Europeans don’t understand what seems clear as day in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma and even California, that our brand of justice demands death.

But we’ve still got plenty of bullets.  And there’s rope galore.  Even if we ran out, there are always the hands of the righteous that could tighten around the neck, and squeeze, and squeeze, until no life remained.  We will never run out of ways to kill people. 

More importantly, we need to focus the cameras on the execution so that all of the righteous can appreciate their decision, the choice of putting another human being to death so that, what?, they can feel that retribution has been served? 

It strikes me as best that we save the cocktails for parties, and go for something quick, effective and extremely messy.  A nice beheading, perhaps, shown in hi-def and technicolor.  Available for wifi and iPads just in case someone is stuck at Starbucks and unable to tune in for a primetime execution.  If we’re going to kill them, then everyone, man, woman and especially child, should have to appreciate the glory of our system of justice.

Let those wussie Europeans keep their sodium thiopental.  Let Hospira get out of the killing business, where they never should have been in the first place.  Let Americans face the reality of their choice, without the benefit of their own anesthesia, their own cocktail, that allows them to kill others and feel nothing.