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Bad Guy is fighting the Good Guy. Good guy miraculously produces a syringe and rams it into the Bad Guy's neck.

Cut, From my middle school biology I aware that capillaries are present throughout the body but I severely doubt that sedatives work by using them anywhere and everywhere. If so we're the case then why would doctors need to find my vein to give me a shot for flu?

Yes, I'm not fun to watch movies with.

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    $\begingroup$ At least in my experience, having recieved a number of vaccinations over my life, they're almost always given intramuscularly, rather than intravenously. You may be confusing vaccinations with the drawing a blood sample from a vein, where you want to draw out a relatively large quantity of blood. $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Dec 16, 2018 at 17:46
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    $\begingroup$ On further thought, the fact that sedatives will work (almost) anywhere is demonstrated by the wide use of tranquilizer guns in wildlife management: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquillizer_gun $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Dec 17, 2018 at 19:09

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There are three basic types of injections:

  • intravenous (IV): An injection straight into the blood stream. Fast, but as you pointed out, one needs to find the vein first. If you are hospitalized, you will likely have a catheter in your vein already, so that you can be given drugs rapidly if needed.

  • intramuscular (IM): This is your second best option for fast effect. There is plenty of capilary vessels in your muscles because they need a good circulation to function (get oxygen in & carbondioxide out). This helps your body also to take up drug injected in your muscle and there is little delay until they enter the blood stream.

  • subcutan: this is used when you are aiming for slow uptake.

Assuming that you envision some sort of combat situation where good guy cannot just start looking for a vein on bad guy's arm, IM seems to be a reasonable choice. If they are in a fight, Bad guy will have a high pulse, so the drugs should get into the blood stream fairly quickly.

See further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injection_(medicine)

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