Fentanyl, a potent drug playing a major role in the US opioid crisis described by Donald Trump as a "plague," is now under consideration for use in lethal cocktails to execute inmates.

The states of Nevada and Nebraska are planning to supply prison executioners with the opioid painkiller -- which killed more than 20,000 people in the United States in 2016 -- drawing criticism from doctors and activists who call the move a dangerous human experiment.

They warn of serious risks posed to death row prisoners, who effectively become guinea pigs against their will.

Fentanyl, which also acts as an anesthetic, is 50 times more powerful than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine.

The bid to use fentanyl as a capital punishment tool is due to a shortage of drugs normally used in lethal injections and is not grounded in scientific analysis, according to Deborah Denno, an expert on lethal injection at Fordham University.

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