More questions about death drug

Pub date February 11, 2011
WriterTim Redmond
SectionPolitics Blog

The Food and Drug Administration has finally released some more documents about the state’s procurement of its death drugs. The Guardian and the ACLU requested the material under the Freedom of Information Act. You can see the latest here.


A lot of it is just dry correspondance between agencies; the FDA was apparently a bit slow at releasing the imported drugs from customs. But there’s some interesting details in the mix.


For one thing, California and Arizona aren’t the only states that bought death drugs from England. A U.K. company named Dream Pharma also got orders from South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia. And that pipeline is now shut off; the U.K. will no longer allow companies to export drugs for executions. (Civilized nation there.)


There’s also the interesting issue of whether the stuff that California bought is up to U.S. standards. The records show that the U.K. company doesn’t know if the Sodium Thiopental it sells meets U.S. standards; the company isn’t approved by the FDA. That means a hospital would have trouble buying and using the stuff for clinical purposes — but apparently it’s okay to use on condemned prisoners.


The issue is more than academic. The thiopental is supposed to render the prisoner unconsious and unable to feel pain before the next two drugs paralyze his breathing and stop his heart. If the stuff doesn’t work, then death could be very painful; imagine being awake as your lungs seized up and your heart stopped beating. In fact, the courts have been very clear on this point: Injecting the two final drugs into a person who is consious amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and is illegal.


So how do we know if the stuff the state bought works as advertised? How do we know what the proper dose is (you can’t exactly test it on someone first)? Is CDCR going to pay for a full chemical analysis to make sure they’re using the right amount of the right stuff?


Man, this is grisly. No wonder most civilized countries reject capital punishment.