In the meantime, states continue to seek additional sources of sodium thiopental.
On Jan. 25, 13 states asked the U.S. Department of Justice for help in identifying sources for the scarce drug or by making federal supplies available to states.
...MAKING FEDERAL SUPPLIES AVAILABLE????WHY DO WE HAVE A "FEDERAL SUPPLY" AND WHERE IS IT STORED?
FYI: Lethal Injection, known as putting someone to death, was first proposed on January 17, 1888, by Julius Mount Bleyer, a New York doctor who praised it as being cheaper than hanging. February 10, 2011
13 states ask for federal help on execution drug shortage
The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing a request from 13 states on how to acquire an execution drug no longer made in the United States and whether the federal government would share its supplies, a federal spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic used as part of the lethal three-drug cocktail, announced last month that it would stop making the drug because the producer never intended it to be used to kill people.
In a letter last month to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the attorneys general in 13 states said injection is the execution method in the majority of states with a death penalty, and protocols in those states use sodium thiopental, "an ultra-short-acting barbiturate."
"Sodium thiopental is in very short supply worldwide and, for various reasons, essentially unavailable on the open market," the letter said. "For those jurisdictions that have the drug available, their supplies are very small -- measured in a handful of doses. The result is that many jurisdictions shortly will be unable to perform executions in cases where appeals have been exhausted and governors have signed death warrants.
"Therefore, we solicit your assistance in either identifying an appropriate source for sodium thiopental or making supplies held by the federal government available to the states," the letter said.
Oregon is one of the 13 states signing the letter and has run out of the execution drug, said spokesman Tony Green of the Oregon Department of Justice.
The other states signing the letter are Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
All states and the federal government use lethal injection as their primary method of execution. Some states use a three-drug protocol, others use a single-drug process. The three-drug protocol uses an anesthetic, sodium thiopental (OR pentobarbital) , followed by pancuronium bromide to paralyze the inmate and potassium chloride to stop the inmate's heart.
The drugs are not mixed externally as that can cause them to precipitate.
Also, a sequential injection is key to achieve the desired effects in the appropriate order: administration of the pentobarbital essentially renders the inmate unconscious; the infusion of the pancuronium bromide induces complete paralysis, including that of the lungs and diaphragm rendering the inmate unable to breathe. If the condemned were not already completely unconscious, the injection of a highly concentrated solution of potassium chloride could cause severe pain at the site of the IV line as well as along the punctured vein, but it interrupts the electrical activity of the heart muscle and causes it to stop beating, bringing about the death of the inmate.
The one-drug protocol uses a lethal dose of an anesthetic.
MANY OPPOSE THE USE OF DRUGS FOR EXECUTION.
The Missouri Society of Anesthesiologists
(MSA) strongly opposes the Missouri Department of Corrections
use of propofol in lethal injections due to the immediate impact it
could have on our ability to safely administer anesthesia during
surgeries.
Europe supplies over 89% of propofol used in the United States.
A shortage of this medication will take the medical specialty of
anesthesiology back 20 years, leading to more complications in
the operating room, an increased rate of nausea and vomiting after
surgery, and extended time required to wake up from anesthesia
after a procedure."
ANESTHESIOLOGISTS CAN LOSE THEIR LICENSES IF THEY ASSIST IN EXECUTIONS, SO WHO IS ADMINISTERING THEM?
TRAINED PROFESSIONALS...
MARCH, 2014
Texas has 317 inmates on death row, but only enough of a key lethal injection drug to execute two of them.
Ohio has just one dose of the drug left.
A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is part of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections, has thrown capital punishment in the United States into disarray, delaying executions and forcing the change of execution protocols in several states.
Last month, Hospira—the sole U.S. company approved to manufacture the drug—announced it will no longer produce sodium thiopental. This move followed a global campaign by death penalty opponents and pressure by Italian government officials after the company sought to shift production of the drug to an Italian plant.
The shortage of sodium thiopental has forced the 35 states using lethal injection to scramble for any remaining stock and to explore alternatives.
Some states—including California, Arizona and Nebraska—were able to obtain the drug from suppliers in England and India. The British government has since banned such shipments. A class-action lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to allow the importation of the drug into the country without adequate inspection or quality checks is pending. Death penalty opponents have raised questions about the quality of the drugs, arguing that if the drugs were expired or otherwise failed to work effectively, inmates could suffer significant pain, violating the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Whether executions will have to be delayed depends largely on the ability of states to make changes to their lethal injection protocols without legislative or regulatory changes.
In some states, switching to a new drug protocol is easily done. For an execution in December, Oklahoma replaced sodium thiopental with pentobarbital, a drug commonly used to euthanize animals. It is believed to be the first time the drug was used in a lethal injection. Ohio plans to do away the three-drug cocktail altogether..Beginning in March, the state will use a single dose of pentobarbital, becoming the first state to use the drug alone. This protocol is untested and many states are watching Ohio before changing their own protocols.
Tennessee is considering such a drug switch, which would not take long for the state to implement. Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction, said such a change does not require new legislation and could be done after a departmental review.
In the meantime, states continue to seek additional sources of sodium thiopental. On Jan. 25, 13 states asked the U.S. Department of Justice for help in identifying sources for the scarce drug or by making federal supplies available to states.
Dieter explained that many other states face a lengthy regulatory process, including California and Kentucky.
In addition, any change in the drug or its supplier will likely lead to lawsuits from inmates facing execution.
Dieter said he expects there will be legal challenges in almost every state currently using sodium thiopental.
Ohio began using a new two-drug protocol (midazolam and hyrdromorphone) on January 16, 2014, with the execution of Dennis McGuire.
Missouri plans to use pentobarbital as the sole drug in its lethal injections. The drug will be obtained from a compounding pharmacy (AP, 10/22/13).
Oklahoma released a new lethal injection protocol on March 21, allowing the Department of Corrections to use any of 5 lethal injection procedures: a three-drug method beginning with sodium thiopental, pentobarbital, or midazolam, a two-drug procedure using midazolam and hydromorphone, or a lethal dose of pentobarbital alone.
March 16, 2011
DEA seizes Georgia's supply of lethal injection drug
The Drug Enforcement Administration has seized Georgia's supply of a key execution drug over questions about how it was imported to the United States.
"Drugs were seized today by the DEA from our facility in Jackson," Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kristen Stancil told the AJC.
The seizure comes more than two weeks after an attorney representing a death row inmate from Cobb County wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder saying the Georgia Department of Corrections circumvented federal law in trying to quickly secure a scarce drug used in lethal injections.
"DEA did take control of the controlled substances today," DEA spokesman Chuvalo Truesdell told the AJC. "There were questions about the way the drugs were imported over here."
Truesdell declined further comment, saying it is now "a regulatory investigation."
John Bentivoglio, a former associate deputy U.S. attorney general in Washington, described extraordinary steps the DOC took to get the sedative thiopental, a scheduled III non-narcotic controlled substance, when a shipment for several states, including Georgia, was held by U.S. Customs in Memphis last summer.
The letter said Corrections is not registered with the federal government to import drugs and the agency did not “submit a declaration to the Drug Enforcement Administration when GDC imported thiopental last year.
Stancil told the AJC after the letter was mailed, the agency asked the DEA for assistance "to make sure that the department was in compliance with the way we handled controlled substances."
Like many states that execute criminals, Georgia uses a three-drug cocktail. The first one is a sedative. The second drug paralyzes the inmate. The third drug stops the heart.
But thiopental, the sedative, has been in short supply nationwide because companies in this country and abroad have refused to provide it if it is going to be used in an execution. Several states have had to delay executions because the drugs they have in stock had expired.
PRISONERS SUE OVER IMPORTED DRUGS
In their recently filed federal lawsuit, death row convicts are seeking an injunction barring future imports of the drug and removal of supplies of the drug already in possession of state governments. The lawsuit represents inmates in Arizona, California and Tennessee.
The FDA continues to allow states to import "bulk amounts" of the drug for use in lethal injection without vetting it to ensure it meets regulatory standards, the lawsuit charges.
"FDA has not determined whether the thiopental being imported into the United States is safe and effective, whether the imported thiopental is adulterated or whether the imported thiopental is counterfeit," the suit says.
SAFE?
HOW CAN A LETHAL DRUG BE CALLED "SAFE"?
October 10, 2013
FROM SPIEGEL
The compound Propofol has long been the most popular anesthetic drug in the United States, with some 50 million doses administered in the country's hospitals and other medical facilities every year. But plans by several US states to begin using the drug for executions have drawn wide concern in the European Union, where near 90 percent of the Propofol supplied to America is manufactured.
Now, out of concern that EU regulations will result in severe restrictions on the drug's export, the German pharmaceutical firm that is the top manufacturer of Propofol, as well as advocacy groups in the US, are scrambling to prevent the drug from being used for lethal injections.
Propofol is the most popular anesthetic drug in the US, used in a variety of surgical procedures in some 15,000 hospitals and clinics. It came to public attention in 2009, when it was blamed for the death of American pop star Michael Jackson.
US states have been searching for alternative sources for lethal injection drugs over the past couple years, as tighter European export controls have led to many pharmaceutical firms banning distribution for executions.
According to Amnesty International, as of February 2012 there are seven countries which have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes: Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Fiji, Israel, Kazakstan, and Peru.
These 7 nations retain the death penalty for crimes occurring under extraordinary circumstances, such as treason, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
HOW DO OTHER NATIONS EXECUTE PRISONERS SENTENCED TO DEATH?
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where a death sentence results in beheading in a public square, and sometimes shootings as an alternative. There have been calls in the Kingdom for replacing beheadings with lethal injection because of the beliefs that they should be more humane when it comes to executions, but nothing has been changed to this day.
Great Britain/United Kingdom stopped executions officially in 1998, and hung the last prisoner in 1964.
China uses lethal injection and shooting.
Egypt still uses hanging for the death penalty.
Iran uses hanging, shooting, stoning, throwing from a cliff, or from a great height.
Japan uses hanging.
Russia appears to have a moratorium on capital punishment, and its favored method, a pistol shot to the back of the head, was last carried out in 1999.
United Arab Emirates uses stoning and shooting.
Papua New Guinea uses hanging.
India uses hanging and shooting.
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was using both shooting and hanging but has apparently stopped shooting.
SLATE DID A "HORROR PIECE" ON LETHAL INJECTION GONE BAD.
The Supreme Court has spoken. In the 2008 case Baze v. Rees, the court ruled that the cocktail used in Kentucky—sodium thiopental (an amnestic), pancuronium bromide (a paralytic), and potassium chloride (designed to stop the heart)—was not in violation of the Eighth Amendment. So despite what you read about inmates suffering—Florida convict Angel Diaz took 34 agonizing minutes to die after executioners mistakenly inserted needles into his flesh instead of his veins—the United States considers lethal injection in its current form neither cruel nor unusual.
A compelling case can be made that based on efficacy, diffusion of responsibility, and inexpensiveness, death by firing squad is a better option. (Or perhaps the guillotine.) Some organs would remain intact for donation, and although it might appear grisly, it’s quick, and it is the only method of execution for which we already train people. Interestingly, in states that have offered both shooting and hanging—which also fulfills many of the above criteria—inmates usually opt for the firing squad. One could argue that if properly done, lethal injection would be more humane than either of these methods, but we can no longer expect that it will be properly done.
I NEVER DID FIND WHY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS A STOCKPILE OF LETHAL DRUGS USED FOR EXECUTION, BUT I AM NOT GIVING UP THAT SEARCH.
AND IT WOULD BE GOOD TO KNOW WHERE AND HOW THEY ARE STORED...
COULD SOMEONE GET TO THEM EASILY?
I'LL KEEP LOOKING INTO IT.
MEANWHILE, I FOUND DRUGS THAT SOME (MANY, IN FACT) CONSIDER EVEN MORE DANGEROUS.
http://www.cchrint.org/2011/06/02/americas-most-dangerous-pill-klonopin/
America’s Most Dangerous Pill? Klonopin.
[A benzodiazepine]Klonopin is the brand name for the pill known as clonazepam.
You could argue that the deadliest “drug” in the world is the venom from a jellyfish known as the Sea Wasp, whose sting can kill a human being in four minutes—up to 100 humans at a time. Potassium chloride, which is used to trigger cardiac arrest and death in the 38 states of the U.S. that enforce the death penalty is also pretty deadly . But when it comes to prescription drugs that are not only able to kill you but can drag out the final reckoning for years on end, with worsening misery at every step of the way, it is hard to top the benzodiazepines. And no “benzo” has been more lethal to millions of Americans than a popular prescription drug called Klonopin.
Along with Klonopin, here are the three other benzos that, by general agreement, have made it into the top ranks of the world’s worst and most widely abused drugs: temazepam (Restoril), alprazolam (Xanax), and lorazepam (Ativan).
12 MOST DANGEROUS PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
http://www.life-sources.com/pages/The-12-most-Dangerous-Prescription-Drugs....html
AND I LEARNED THAT MORE AMERICANS DIE FROM SOME PRESCRIPTION DRUGS THAN DIE NY AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT TODAY IN AMERICA!
AND PEOPLE WANT TO BAN GUNS?
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE THE BIGGER KILLER BY FAR.
The 10 Most Dangerous Meds Driving America's Pill Crisis
More Americans now die from prescription pills than car accidents. The nation's response to the trend will define an era, but corporate influence threatens reform.
In terms of the big picture, however, the fact that prescription drugs have overtaken automobiles as the nation's leading cause of accidental deaths marks a deeper societal transformation.
Medical Watch: Top 7 Most Dangerous Drugs
http://www.wspa.com/story/21495046/medical-watch-top-7-most-dangerous-drugs
Deaths by painkiller now outpace the combined nationwide number of deaths by cocaine (5,100) and heroin (3,000)
The Most Addictive Prescription Drugs on the Markethttp://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/prescription-drug-addictions
LISTS RITALIN, A DRUG COMMONLY PRESCRIBED FOR CHILDREN.
WHETHER YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, IT'S PROBABLY HERE TO STAY.
SO, BY DRUGS OR OTHER METHODS?
WHAT REALLY IS "MOST HUMANE" FOR CONVICTED KILLERS, etc?
I WONDER HOW MUCH STATES PAY FOR THOSE "LETHAL DRUGS"?
A ROPE (SUCH AS WAS USED FOR HANGING) COSTS ABOUT $50.00.
A .357 MAGNUM SHELL (SUCH AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT MIGHT USE) CAN COST AS LITTLE AS ABOUT $1.70 PER ROUND.
HAS CONGRESS CALLED FOR A "STUDY"?
THEY REALLY SHOULD...MOST OF THEM COULD BE HANGED FOR TREASON!!!
RUMORS ABOUNDED A COUPLE YEARS BACK THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WAS BUYING GUILLOTINES, BUT MAINSTREAM MEDIA SAID IT WASN'T SO...
HOWEVER, THE STATE OF GEORGIA, USA, HAS APPARENTLY THOUGHT ABOUT THAT OPINION, AND THE FOLLOWING IS INDEED A VALID STATE DOCUMENT....
Georgia House of Representatives – 1995/1996 Sessions
HB 1274 – Death penalty; guillotine provisions
Code Sections – 17-10-38/ 17-10-44
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1- 1 To amend Article 2 of Chapter 10 of Title 17 of the Official
1- 2 Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to the death penalty
1- 3 generally, so as to provide a statement of legislative
1- 4 policy; to provide for death by guillotine; to provide for
1- 5 applicability; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other
1- 6 purposes.
1- 7 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA:
SECTION 1.
1- 8 The General Assembly finds that while prisoners condemned to
1- 9 death may wish to donate one or more of their organs for
1-10 transplant, any such desire is thwarted by the fact that
1-11 electrocution makes all such organs unsuitable for
1-12 transplant. The intent of the General Assembly in enacting
1-13 this legislation is to provide for a method of execution
1-14 which is compatible with the donation of organs by a
1-15 condemned prisoner.
…
1-22 (a) All persons who have been convicted of a capital
1-23 offense and have had imposed upon them a sentence of death
1-24 shall, at the election of the condemned, suffer such
1-25 punishment either by electrocution or by guillotine.
OH, THOSE RUMORS, YES?
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