May 19, 2011 | 3:09 PM | By

Execution drugs: Who has what

FILED UNDER: Courts, ACLU of Northern California, Drug Enforcement Agency, Execution Drugs, Sodium Thiopental


View Lethal Injection Scramble in a larger map
The saga over a national shortage of the execution drug sodium thiopental and states’ legally questionable international searches for the drug continued last week in federal court in San Francisco. The ACLU of Northern California and San Francisco Bay Guardian are suing the Drug Enforcement Agency for documents related to the legality of foreign-bought executions drugs that have found their way into several states.

According to what’s publicly known, 10 states have execution drugs purchased abroad–meaning, purchased from sources other than the sole FDA-approved manufacturer, a US company which no longer produces sodium thiopental. In addition to questions about the efficacy of the drugs–which put an inmate to sleep while he or she is executed, otherwise a painful process–there are questions about the legality of states having imported such drugs from abroad. The most pressing question this lawsuit hopes to answer is why the DEA has seized drugs from half the states that imported them, while leaving the other half untouched.

Above is a map, compiled by the ACLU of Northern California of who has foreign-bought execution drugs among US states and which have been seized by the DEA as the agency investigates the legality of their route to the US. Just to note, California, which purchased sodium thiopental from the United Kingdom, sent a sample of the supply to an outside lab for testing and didn’t find any chemical problems with the drug that would impact its efficacy. (Lab report below.)
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