EU bans export of execution drug to US
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Sorry, Rick Perry. Your world-famous Texas executions might have to be place on hold for a little bit. One of the only exporters left of the death drugs used to kill American inmates is pulling the plug on sending shipments abroad. The entire European Union is looking to place a halt on the export of certain barbituric acids starting at the end of this week, and among those impacted by the ban is sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in the execution cocktail favored by many of the American states that still impose the death penalty. This news comes courtesy of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which first noted on the EU ban on Monday. The Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) is set to publish the new regulations on the export this week, with the ban formally taking effect this Friday. The United States has been scouring the world for thiopental at any time since Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Hospira stopped manufacturing it in January, ceasing domestic manufacturing entirely. While the drug is still being made in some worldwide locales — and stockpiles exist across the US — the future of executions in America will surely be impacted by the ban. The United States has already executed 43 inmates in 2011. By April 1, 2012, another dozen are already slated to be killed. As provides of sodium thiopental dwindle, however, replacing it with another drug would require a lengthy approval process which could complicate scheduled executions, which are already being in part delayed. While sodium thiopental has other uses, more and more countries are enacting embargoes of sodium thiopental on America as it becomes clear that the US is acquiring the drug only to bring upon death. The latest regulation arrive as a huge blow to the American killing industry but is not an outcome that has arrive from out of nowhere. Previously this year, German Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler denied a request from former US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to obtain the drug. The Süddeutsche reviews that Rösler, health minister of Germany when he rejected Locke’s plea, helped in part introduce the new regulations over the drug. Additionally, the CEO of a Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company also attacked American officials for using surreptitious means to obtain the poison. "I am shocked and appalled by this news," Prithi Kochhar of Swiss-based Naari AH, wrote to Nebraska's Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican. "I am writing to request that the thiopental which was wrongfully diverted … to the Nebraska Division of Correctional Services be returned immediately to its rightful owners, that is, that it be returned to us at Naari." Indian pharmaceutical company Kayem Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. also recently stopped export of the drug for use in executions. “We thought exporting to the US will be good for us,” Kayem Managing Director Navneet Verma tells The Hindu. “We offered 500 vials of the drug to Nebraska and 500 to South Dakota, not knowing its end use. When we learnt it was being used for execution in US prisons it was a complete bouncer. We issued a public statement announcing that we have discontinued selling it to the.,” Lundbeck, a Danish manufacturer of a related drug used in recent months for executions, pentobarbital, states on its website that it "will deny distribution of the product to prisons in US states currently energetic in carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection." Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, tells the Lincoln Journal Star, however, that pentobarbital is still widely available in the states. To the World-Herald, Dieter adds, " If Nebraska just moves to pentobarbital, which is the typical next step, the state will probably quickly face problems with that drug also." Around 11 states in the US have been trying to purchase sodium thiopental from outside sources since Hospira ceased manufacturing, but the US Drug Enforcement Administration has mostly seized stockpiles, citing imports conducted illegally. It is thought that 35 states in all use the anesthetic in one way or another to execute alleged criminals.