Yesterday, the DEA seized Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental, the anesthetic most states use as the first drug in a three drug cocktail to execute prisoners, explaining that there are “questions about how the drug was imported to the U.S.”
States have been importing sodium thiopental because the one US-based, FDA-approved manufacturer, Hospira, has ceased production over concerns about its use in executions. Georgia, Arizona, Arkansas, California and Tennessee have all imported this drug from non-FDA approved sources in the U.K., and Nebraska recently acquired a large quantity from a non-FDA approved source in India.
Attorneys in Georgia in particular have objected that the drug came from a “fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England.” Raised in advance of the execution of Emmanuel Hammond in January, these concerns, though ignored by the courts, apparently were noticed by the DEA.
Outside the U.S., Swiss-based Novartis, the company responsible for a generic, non-Hospira version of sodium thiopental recently announced its intention to prevent its drug from being used in executions. And Denmark-based Lundbeck, maker of pentobarbital, the substitute drug currently being used by Oklahoma and Ohio, has also strongly objected to the use of their product in the killing of prisoners.
The fundamental problem is this: carrying out executions with drugs meant for healing is an unresolvable and unsustainable breach of basic medical ethics (not to mention human rights). States like Georgia sneaking around and skirting the rules to import the drugs just makes it worse.
Sadly the US has dismissed calls from around the world to stop capital punishment of its citizens. This has been made all the more provocative when strong indicators of innocence in specific cases have been publicised in world media over recent months. Therefore the only way to stop executions is to do this indirectly by bringing presssure to bare on those who supply the drugs needed for this inhumane and barbaric system which executes so many innocent men and women.
Thankfully Illinois finally abolished the Death Penalty this month. Good works slowly, but it does work.
Sadly the US has dismissed calls from around the world to stop capital punishment of its citizens. This has been made all the more provocative when strong indicators of innocence in specific cases have been publicised in world media over recent months. Therefore the only way to stop executions is to do this indirectly by bringing presssure to bare on those who supply the drugs needed for this inhumane and barbaric system which executes so many innocent men and women.
Thankfully Illinois finally abolished the Death Penalty this month. Good works slowly, but it does work.