Finn Torode
The only American manufacturer of a drug that is used for lethal injections will no longer make the drug, a move that could spell trouble for death-penalty states.
Lake Forest, Illinois-based Hospira Inc.’s decision brings months of wrangling over the anesthetic thiopental sodium to an end. In order to continue executing prisoners, courts—and possibly even state lawmakers—would have to approve a new anesthetic to replace it, the Wall Street Journal reports today.
The company was having trouble producing the drug, though it planned to resume making it earlier this year. But Italian lawmakers threw a wrench in that plan. The drug is manufactured at a plant in Liscate, Italy, and the Italian parliament issued an order binding the government to make sure that it could not be used in lethal injections.
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma late last year, a judge approved the use of pentobarbital, a drug used to anesthetize animals, for the execution of state inmates. The state was the first to approve the use of thiopental in capital punishment, and it could lead the way for wider use of pentobarbital for the same purpose.
So far this year, three prisoners have been executed in the state of Oklahoma and one in Alabama, all by lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Last year, 46 people were executed.
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