Recent rev­e­la­tions about the source of drugs used in lethal injec­tions in the U.S. reveal the extent to which some states have gone in their pur­suit of the dead­ly chem­i­cals. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, Arizona obtained its three lethal injec­tion drugs from Dream Pharma, Ltd., a small phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny in west London locat­ed in the back of a dri­ving school. Clive Stafford Smith, direc­tor of Reprieve, a British orga­ni­za­tion offer­ing legal sup­port to death row inmates in the U.S., remarked, ​“The whole issue here is bizarre. How can we have a dri­ving instruc­tor with a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny in the back cup­board basi­cal­ly sell­ing drugs to an American cor­rec­tions insti­tu­tion to kill peo­ple? And it’s bizarre that the law allows it.” The own­er of Dream Pharma claimed he had no idea the drugs he sold to Arizona would be used for lethal injec­tions. Arizona used its for­eign drugs to exe­cute Jeffrey Landrigan on October 26, 2010, and also sup­plied a quan­ti­ty to California, which was scram­bling to car­ry out its own exe­cu­tions. Courts in California stayed all exe­cu­tions to allow for a more care­ful review of the process.

Many states are still find­ing it dif­fi­cult to acquire sodi­um thiopen­tal for their exe­cu­tions. In December, John David Duty in Oklahoma became the first per­son to be exe­cut­ed using a dose of pen­to­bar­bi­tal, an alter­na­tive anes­thet­ic used by vet­eri­nar­i­ans to euth­a­nize ani­mals. It was the last exe­cu­tion of the year in the U.S. On January 6, Oklahoma car­ried out the first exe­cu­tion of 2011 when it exe­cut­ed Billy Don Alverson using the same drug. In both exe­cu­tions, pen­to­bar­bi­tal was one of three drugs used in the lethal injections.

(A. Hosken, ​“Lethal injec­tion drug sold from UK dri­ving school,” BBC, January 6, 2011; DPIC). See Lethal Injection.

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