Officials: Texas running out of execution drug
By Mike Ward
American-Statesman Staff
State
officials said Thursday they are again running out of the lethal drug
used to operate the nation’s busiest execution chamber.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said the state’s remaining supply of pentobarbital expires in September, and officials “are exploring all options” for an alternative.
Prison officials acknowledged last year that if the supply of pentobarbital ran out, they had explored switching to other drugs including propofol — the powerful anesthetic that contributed to pop star Michael Jackson’s death from cardiac arrest in 2009.
Clark and prison officials offered few other details on Texas’ latest quandary on a source for its lethal drugs, which have caused it to switch twice in three years as manufacturers stopped producing the necessary drugs under pressure from death penalty opponents.
Eleven people have been executed in Texas so far this year with pentobarbital, a barbituate used medically as a sedative. Texas and at least four other states switched to it just over a year ago after pancuronium bromide became unavailable. Pancuronium bromide was part of a lethal three-drug cocktail that Texas and other states had used for decades, until its manufacture was stopped in part over concerns about its use for executions in the United States.
Texas executed its latest criminal on Wednesday. Officials said two executions are scheduled in September and at least five others are set in the months after that. They would not say exactly when the pentobarbital supply would expire and become unusable, and would not comment on whether any of the September executions would be delayed.
Other states in recent months have reported problems with buying pentobarbital, but because Texas bought a large supply more than a year ago, officials had previously insisted they faced no such issue.
In all, Texas has executed 503 inmates since 1982, when it resumed executions after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.
Virginia is second in executions at 110.
Propofol, an anesthetic used in veterinary medicine as well as human medicine, is approved for use in more than 50 countries, and generic versions are available. It has largely replaced sodium thiopental, previously one of Texas’ three execution drugs.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/officials-texas-running-out-of-execution-drug/nZBF6/
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said the state’s remaining supply of pentobarbital expires in September, and officials “are exploring all options” for an alternative.
Prison officials acknowledged last year that if the supply of pentobarbital ran out, they had explored switching to other drugs including propofol — the powerful anesthetic that contributed to pop star Michael Jackson’s death from cardiac arrest in 2009.
Clark and prison officials offered few other details on Texas’ latest quandary on a source for its lethal drugs, which have caused it to switch twice in three years as manufacturers stopped producing the necessary drugs under pressure from death penalty opponents.
Eleven people have been executed in Texas so far this year with pentobarbital, a barbituate used medically as a sedative. Texas and at least four other states switched to it just over a year ago after pancuronium bromide became unavailable. Pancuronium bromide was part of a lethal three-drug cocktail that Texas and other states had used for decades, until its manufacture was stopped in part over concerns about its use for executions in the United States.
Texas executed its latest criminal on Wednesday. Officials said two executions are scheduled in September and at least five others are set in the months after that. They would not say exactly when the pentobarbital supply would expire and become unusable, and would not comment on whether any of the September executions would be delayed.
Other states in recent months have reported problems with buying pentobarbital, but because Texas bought a large supply more than a year ago, officials had previously insisted they faced no such issue.
In all, Texas has executed 503 inmates since 1982, when it resumed executions after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.
Virginia is second in executions at 110.
Propofol, an anesthetic used in veterinary medicine as well as human medicine, is approved for use in more than 50 countries, and generic versions are available. It has largely replaced sodium thiopental, previously one of Texas’ three execution drugs.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/officials-texas-running-out-of-execution-drug/nZBF6/
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