I hear a lot of controversies about what drugs are used for lethal injection. I am a little unclear on the legalities and ethics, but I understand that physicians will not write prescriptions for lethal injections. So I don’t know where the states get the drugs from. If a prescription is required, they can’t get it. If a prescription is not required, how can the substance be considered a reliable option for that purpose?
Every once in a while you hear a news story about a person who dies of a heroin overdose with the needle still in his arm. Why don’t they just use massive overdoses of legal drugs for lethal injection? Maybe they would need a prescription for that, to.
I am not an expert, but a prison doctor can certainly write a prescription to get any kind of drug they need. My guess is that states have ways of getting what they need to do the job.
I have never heard of a state not being able to get the drugs it needs to put someone to death.
They chose the drugs they use because of the way they work. Heroin isn’t guaranteed to kill you in a quick or painless way…
Oh there’s no shortage of opiate overdose victims who have been revived using various methods. By report opiate overdose is a pretty good way to go.
But it’s not very pretty and it takes a long time. Opiate tolerance varies quite a lot, though I’d have a hard time believing someone could survive a gram of fentanyl IVP.
Currently many states are using a single drug method because of shortages and embargoes on thr drugs in the three drug “cocktail” that was used by most states until recently. The drug now used is usually pentobarbital, a barbituate also commonly used to euthanize animals. Prison officials in Texas obtained the drugs sans prescription directly from an Austin pharmacy until recently, but it’s now unknown where the drug is obtained and most likely manufactured on-site at a compounding pharmacy, still sans prescription. There was a recent federal court case in Texas in which the federal district court judge ordered the prison to disclose where the drug came from, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and the Supremes refused to hear the case.
If you think it’s difficult to get your hands on pentobarbital, just try getting your hands on a schedule I or II narcotic. Imporatation and distribution of schedule II drugs is very tightly controlled, and importation and distribution of schedule I drugs is straight up illegal. That said, some states are now using hydromorphone as a lethal injection drug, a strong opiate/narcotic similar to morphine and heroin. I don’t know where they get it from and they ain’t telling. I assume it’s either prescribed by an anonymous medical professional or obtained directly sans prescription from a pharmacy.
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas;17315658I]
… Why don’t they just use massive overdoses of legal drugs for lethal injection? Maybe they would need a prescription for that, to.
[/QUOTE]
They do, and of course they do.
Rough summary - drugs approved for lethal injection are well established drugs that are available as generics. Companies do not use the finest facilities to manufacture the lower profit drugs that are available as generics.
The last facility in the U.S. that manufactured one of the three components of the approved “cocktail” was shut down rather than remediate cited GMP violations. European facilities will not export the drug for use in lethal injection.
The rumor is that states are going to compounding pharmacies to get the drugs, right at the same time the compounders are under increased scrutiny because of the meningitis outbreak.