Digest of Biblical Civil Law

When a man is led out to be executed he is to be given a cup of drugged wine so as to cloud his mind. For it was said:  "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts" (Prov. 31:6).
- "Law of Procedure (Tractate Sanhedrin),"  The Babylonian Talmud in Selection, Ed. by Leo Auerbach, 249 (1944), at http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/bata/bata15.htm.