U.S.: States moving quickly to switch execution drug

San Quentin's new
death chamber

Nearly 2/3 of the 16 states with active death chambers are switching to an alternative sedative for execution -- even as the drug's manufacturer argues against its use in capital punishment and some European countries push to ban the export of such drugs.

10 states, including Texas, have switched to pentobarbital or are considering a switch as part of their 3-drug methods, according to a survey of all death penalty states by The Associated Press.

At issue is a shortage of sodium thiopental, a sedative that states used for more than 3 decades until its only U.S. manufacturer stopped making it in 2009 and dropped plans to resume production this year.

The shortage forced several states to scramble to find new supplies, and executions were temporarily delayed in Arizona, California, Georgia and Oklahoma. States swapped supplies of sodium thiopental or looked overseas, to England, India and even Pakistan.

Several states turned to England and obtained doses of sodium thiopental not approved for medical use in this country by the FDA.

But that source dried up after the British government banned the drug's export for use in executions and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began seizing supplies from Georgia and other states over questions of whether they broke the law to get the drug.

The 10 states that have switched to pentobarbital or are considering a switch are among 16 that held executions in the past 3 years or have executions scheduled this year.

Pentobarbital is used as a sedative in some surgeries, as a hypnotic for short-term treatment of insomnia and as a way to control certain types of seizures.

Anti-death-penalty groups want its Danish manufacturer, Lundbeck Inc., to write clauses into contracts with pharmaceutical distributors to ban its use in executions.

Lundbeck, which strongly opposes the use of its drug for capital punishment, says such clauses would be impractical because of the way drugs are distributed.

"We don't control the full supply chain and how it gets into the hands of the end user," said Lundbeck's U.S. spokeswoman, Sally Benjamin Young.

Once a drugmaker sells its initial supplies to wholesalers, the drugs are shipped to a variety of retailers nationwide that can resell them to licensed medical professionals.

Texas, the country's most active death penalty state, obtained all three of its execution drugs from Besse Medical of suburban Cincinnati, a large pharmaceutical distributor.

The company says it has no way to determine what its customers do with its products.

Source: Associated Press, April 22, 2011

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