The death penalty opponents never give up. They have used the ACLU to charge that the sodium thiopental California, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee ordered from Dream Pharma, a one-man operation run from the back of a London driving school, was impure and not fit to be used in executions. Lab tests of California’s imported sodium thiopental proved the allegation to be false.
The states would save themselves a lot of headaches if they would simply replace sodium thiopental with pentobarbital, a drug that is not in short supply here in the U.S. As a matter of fact, Ohio recently used pentobarbital as a single-dose lethal drug and the execution came off without a hitch.
STATE’S LETHAL INJECTION DRUG PASSES LAB TESTS
By Ryan Gabrielson
California Watch
April 11, 2011
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s supply of a key lethal injection drug is lab-certified as sterile and sufficiently potent.
Prison officials sent off a share of their sodium thiopental for testing in January to confirm the drug was manufactured properly. The department purchased 521 grams of the anesthetic in October from an obscure pharmaceutical wholesaler in London.
With the reassuring results (report embedded at bottom), perhaps the lone remaining concern about California’s supply is whether it will fall within an expanding federal inquiry. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating how officials in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee imported sodium thiopental, the first of a three-drug cocktail that renders condemned inmates unconscious.
Federal agents have taken possession of imported lethal injection drugs from the three states, the Associated Press reported. Sodium thiopental is in extremely short supply in the United States, prompting some states to share their reserves, or to purchase the drug from overseas.
The latter scenario is becoming the new norm for prison systems that rely on that specific anesthetic. But anti-death penalty groups and condemned inmates have raised questions about whether the imported drug meets U.S. quality control standards.
If the drug does not work as intended, inmates would likely experience extreme pain, violating their Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
Food and Drug Administration records show Georgia secured its doses [PDF] from the same vendor as California: Dream Pharma, a one-man operation run from the back of a London driving school.
It remains unknown whether California used the same importers to move the drugs from port to prison.
E-mail correspondence between state and federal officials [PDF] show the corrections department sought the DEA's advice on how to legally import the anesthetic last year.
A DEA agent, whose name has been redacted, on Oct. 4 provided Scott Kernan, corrections department undersecretary for operations, with a spreadsheet listing all approved sodium thiopental importers.
A few days earlier, the corrections department tried unsuccessfully to get a waiver that would have allowed it to import the anesthetic itself. John McAuliffe, a corrections department contract employee, was rebuffed by a DEA official, who wrote that such approval would have to come from someone “above him.”
To which, Kernan replied: “When he responds please get a name and number of superior who can approve an exemption for this specific purpose. I’ll call or even get Matt or somebody in Gov’s office to call.”
The “Matt” referenced is likely Matt Cate, the state corrections secretary.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California obtained the records through Freedom of Information Requests to the federal agency. The organization also forced release of more than 1,000 pages of state records on the lethal injection drug by suing CDCR.
No matter how it arrived at San Quentin State Prison, analysis records released this week show the sodium thiopental meets quality standards. The lab report states that pharmacological potency of tested doses was 93.7 percent, with acceptably low levels of heavy metals and impurities.
7 comments:
Delay, obstruct, and ultimately deny. Make it so time consuming and costly to perform that states will, at some point, give up on it all together.
Forget arguing a point of view based soley on it's merits. The goal is to win...to have your point of view prevail at any cost.
I mean...if you just KNOW you're right...the ends justify the means...do they not?
It DOES matter how this "stealth" sodium thiopental drug arrived at San Quentin State Prison. The public has a right to know the truth - the name and location of the supplier.
The lab report states that analysis records of this "alleged" sodium thiopental "allegedly" meets quality standards - that pharmacological potency of tested doses was 93.7 percent with "allegedly" acceptably low levels of heavy metals and impurities.
And the other 6.3 percent that is NOT acceptable ??? How will this 6.3 percent be affected ??? Human beings are not guinea pigs to be used as some kind of experimental objects, like the Nazi medical experiments !!!
This scientific experiment is so sick, inhumane and sadistic !!!
Aww, come on Dorina, get a life!
93.7 percent purity is about as good as you're going to get from any manufactured drug, be it for AIDS, cholesterol, depression, hypertension, erectile dysfunction, etc.
Besides that, you misinterpreted the analysis by reading into it what you wanted to read into it. The 6.3 percent consists of the heavy metals and other impurities, minute quantities that are too small to have any untoward effects.
'This scientific experiment is so sick, inhumane and sadistic !!!' What experiment are you talking about? Have you been smoking some funny tobacco? What you've got here is scientifically recognized as an acceptable drug.
And when you compare the execution of an inhumane and sadistic murdering scumbag to 'Nazi medical experiments,' you have sunk to a new low!!!
Come off of it Dorina, it isn't a freaking experiment. This isn't Dr. Mengele or Dr. Moreau doing something weird. They are deliberately killing a disgusting piece of quasi-human trash who has clearly lost the right to breath the same air as decent people, or any air at all for that matter. We all know you have a problem with capital punishment. Why don't you demonstrate a little intellectual honesty? Perhaps that is asking too much of a hardcore liberal.
Bob Walsh
Perhaps Dorina would prefer a 100% pure lead bullet to the back of their heads.
Would that mollify you Dorina?
It is illegal to force a person into accepting any medical or other procedure whatsoever. The law clearly states that a procedure (in this case the lethal jab) cannot take place unless a person first signs a consent form.
I am not aware of any person in the USA (aka The Land of The Free) who has signed a consent form for the lethal jab, a bullet, gas, electrocution, which are always performed by sadistic sexually disfunctional persons who obviously achieve some kind of sick orgasm during the killing procedure.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that very person is entitled to these universal human rights laws and standards, including persons sentenced to death under a barbaric, seriously flawed, riddled with legal errors, discriminative and corrupt criminal justice system.
Sodium Thiopental used as "Sodium Thiopental for injection" is a steril lyophilized mixture of sodium thiopental (the active ingrident) and sodium carbonate. The sodium carbonate is used as a pH buffer to keep the sodium thiopental soluble and stable. The "93.7%" is the assay of sodium thiopental within the mixture. About 6.3% are sodium carbonate.
The heavy metals are typically below 20 parts per million. The related substances (organic impurities which are structural related to thiopental) are typically below 1.0% - 2.0%. These are usual levels used for drug substances.
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