Execution Drugs Three States Attempted to Illegally Import Have Now Expired

Three thou­sand vials of the anes­thet­ic sodi­um thiopen­tal that three states attempt­ed to ille­gal­ly import into the United States for use in exe­cu­tions have now expired, accord­ing to an inves­tiga­tive report by BuzzFeed News. Arizona, Nebraska, and Texas each pur­chased 1000 vials of the drug in 2015 from a ques­tion­able sup­pli­er in India called Harris Pharma, despite warn­ings from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that impor­ta­tion of the drug would vio­late federal law. 

Citing doc­u­ments obtained from the FDA through a pub­lic records request, BuzzFeed reports that the sodi­um thiopen­tal in the ship­ments expired in May 2017. 

The FDA con­fis­cat­ed the sodi­um thiopen­tal Arizona and Texas attempt­ed to bring into the coun­try after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized the ship­ments at air­ports in Phoenix and Houston. Federal offi­cials jus­ti­fied their action say­ing that a 2012 court order ​“requires the FDA to refuse admis­sion to the US any ship­ment of for­eign man­u­fac­tured sodi­um thiopen­tal being offered for impor­ta­tion that appears to be an unap­proved new drug or a mis­brand­ed drug.” FedEx halt­ed Nebraska’s ship­ment in India because of ​“improp­er or missing paperwork.” 

Harris Pharma, the com­pa­ny that sold the drugs, claimed to have man­u­fac­tured the sodi­um thiopen­tal itself, but the facil­i­ties it reg­is­tered with the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration were not equipped to pro­duce phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Harris had, in fact, pur­chased the drug from anoth­er Indian man­u­fac­tur­er and resold it to the three states at a sub­stan­tial­ly inflated price. 

The sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er of sodi­um thiopen­tal halt­ed pro­duc­tion in 2011 over eth­i­cal con­cerns about the use of the prod­uct in executions. 

In January 2017, Texas sued the FDA in fed­er­al court over the agan­cy’s con­tin­ued deten­tion of the drugs with­out hav­ing issued a for­mal deci­sion on the dis­po­si­tion of the drugs. The FDA issued a final order in April 2017 refus­ing to release the drugs to Arizona and Texas, and Texas has chal­lenged that ruling. 

A spokesper­son for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said the state’s law­suit against the FDA would con­tin­ue, despite the expi­ra­tion of the drugs. Last year, a Texas offi­cial whose name was redact­ed from offi­cial doc­u­ments said in an affi­davit that the state, ​“intends to con­tin­ue import­ing thiopen­tal sodi­um from the same for­eign source, and with the same label­ing, as the entry that FDA is currently detaining.”