Ohio joins growing number of states out of execution drug after EU boycott

Death penalty states vow to press on with executing prisoners despite inability to replenish stocks of drug pentobarbitalThe number of US states to run out of the drugs they use for executions is growing. Ohio has exhausted its supplies of pentobarbital, the powerful sedative it uses to execute prisoners, becoming the latest death penalty state to be hit by what amounts to a boycott on drug sales to US corrections departments.Ohio expended its last viable doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday in killing Harry Mitts Jr, 61, sentenced to death for the 1994 shootings in Cleveland of a black man and a police officer. The state is unable to replenish its stocks of the drug after the sedative's manufacturer, Lundbeck in Denmark, imposed stringent restrictions on sales that prohibits distribution to prison institutions involved in executions.The de facto boycott leaves Ohio, and a growing number of other death penalty states, in limbo, with no obvious alternative method of execution open to them. A spokesperson for the state's correction department told the Guardian that its execution protocol that governs the method of death is now likely to be changed in time for the next scheduled execution, of Ronald Phillips on 14 November. Any proposed change will be announced by Ohio by 4 October.Despite its professed intention to continue executing prisoners, the harsh truth for Ohio is that no easy solution to the drugs drought is readily to be found. Arkansas, California, Georgia, Missouri, ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: theguardian.com United States Capital punishment World news Ohio Europe Drugs Source Type: news