Texas cocktail
n.— «We use what’s known as the Texas cocktail, which is injections of three different drugs. The first drug that is injected is sodium pentothal and that, in this state, is the fatal dose. Once that dose is given, the inmate’s not getting up off that table. He or she is not going to feel anything from the subsequent two injections because the first one is enough to cause death. The other two are administered: one stops the heart and one stops respiration and it speeds up the process, but after that first dose is given the execution, for all practical purposes, has been conducted.» —“THV Extra: Is Lethal Injection Too Painful?” by Alyson Courtney KTHV-TV (Little Rock, Arkansas) Mar. 1, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The admonition Don’t Mess with Texas may sound like a tough guy’s warning, but it started out as an anti-littering slogan more than 40 years ago. In the 1980s, the Texas Department of Transportation launched the campaign to cut roadside litter that...
While hiking in Colorado, Becca from Corinth, Texas, felt what she calls a kind of “pre-emptive nostalgia,” an appreciation sharpened by knowing the beauty would soon be gone. Is there a word for “feeling homesick for a place you haven’t yet left”...