On October 4, Ohio announced it will be obtain­ing its exe­cu­tion drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal, from a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy if it is not avail­able from the man­u­fac­tur­er. Texas made a sim­i­lar announce­ment a few days ear­ler. In the past, some com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies have been impli­cat­ed in pro­vid­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed drugs with fatal side effects. These local com­pa­nies are not reg­u­lat­ed by the Food and Drug Administration. Florida announced it will be using a new drug, mida­zo­lam, in its October 15 exe­cu­tion. The drug will be part of a 3‑drug process and has nev­er been used before in exe­cu­tions. The 3‑drug process can be extreme­ly painful if the first drug is not com­plete­ly effec­tive. Missouri intends to be the first state in the coun­try to use the drug propo­fol in its October 23 exe­cu­tion, despite the fact that the drug com­pa­ny that deliv­ered the drug has asked for its return. If Missouri goes ahead with the exe­cu­tion, European coun­tries may impose restric­tions on the expor­ta­tion of this drug, there­by affect­ing oth­er uses for vital surg­eries in the U.S. Finally, Tennessee will now use only a sin­gle drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal, in its exe­cu­tions, though it did not say where it hoped to obtain the drug.

Law suits chal­leng­ing these untried meth­ods and new sources of drugs are being filed in most upcom­ing exe­cu­tions. Texas has an exe­cu­tion sched­uled for October 9.

(USA Today, Oct. 4, 2013 (AP-Ohio); Editorial: ​“Missouri gets death drug by mis­take: ​‘Capital pun­ish­ment for sur­gi­cal patients’,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 2, 2013; M. Graczyk, ​“Texas reveals exe­cu­tion drug’s ori­gin,” Associated Press, October 2, 2013; S. Bousquet, ​“Florida to Use New, Untried Drug in Lethal Injections,” Tampa Bay Times, October 3, 2013; WBIR, Sept. 27, 2013 (Tenn.)). See Lethal Injection.

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