An inves­ti­ga­tion by St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon found that the source of Missouri​’s lethal injec­tion drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal, is a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy in Oklahoma, not licensed to sell drugs in Missouri. Until very recent­ly, com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies have been reg­u­lat­ed only by state phar­ma­cy boards, not by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Thus, a phar­ma­cy in Oklahoma may be held to dif­fer­ent stan­dards than one in Missouri. Ned Milenkovich, a phar­ma­cist and attor­ney who serves on the Illinois Board of Pharmacy, said, ​“The pur­pose of the board is not to pro­tect the phar­ma­cy and the phar­ma­cist but to pro­tect the pub­lic of the state and the cit­i­zens of Missouri in this case,” adding that out-of-state phar­ma­cies are legal­ly required to be reg­is­tered in the state to which they send drugs. The legal­i­ty of the Department of Corrections obtain­ing exe­cu­tion drugs from an out-of-state phar­ma­cy is uncer­tain. A fed­er­al judge described the exe­cu­tion drug source, which the state has fought to keep secret, as a ​“shad­ow phar­ma­cy hid­den by the hangman’s hood.”

Missouri’s next exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for January 29, but the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is being chal­lenged in court.

(C. McDaniel and V. LaCapra, ​“Investigation: Missouri’s Execution Drug Source Raises Legal, Ethical Questions,” St. Louis Public Radio, December 31, 2013). See Lethal Injection.

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