PENTOBARBITAL PRODUCERS AND DEATH PENALTY OPPONENTS OBSTRUCTING THE PROCESS OF JUSTICE

There should be a way for states like Georgia and Texas to sue or even criminally charge the drug companies that manufacture pentobarbital and the death penalty opponents who have pressured them into not making the drug available for executions. Those drug companies and the death penalty opponents are clearly interfering with and obstructing the process of justice.

TEXAS SOON WILL RUN OUT OF DRUG USED FOR LETHAL INJECTIONS

AFP
August 2, 2013

Texas, the state that puts to death the most prisoners in the US, will soon run out of the drug used for lethal injections.

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Justice told AFP Friday that the state's stock of pentobarbital, the barbiturate used for the death penalty, has nearly run out.

"The stock expires in September, which means we can make it through September," Hurt said.

The state will have to find an alternative whether "another provider for the pentobarbital, or other options that would involve other drugs besides pentobarbital," he said.

Six executions are already scheduled for the last four months of the year.

US states that execute prisoners faced a problem when manufacturers began objecting to and barring distribution of the drug for lethal injections.

Pentobarbital is an anesthetic used to euthanize animals.

Hurt said that two executions scheduled for September will take place and that a solution should be found by that time. He said the state plans to continue with lethal injections.

Texas has executed 503 people since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976. A total of 1,342 people have been executed in the country since then.

Texas has already put to death 11 of the 22 people executed in the US in 2013, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.