Shortage of drug holds up some U.S. executions

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Some executions in the U.S. have been put on hold because of a shortage of one of the drugs used in lethal injections from coast to coast.

Several of the 35 states that rely on lethal injection are either scrambling to find sodium thiopental — an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious — or considering using another drug. But both routes are strewn with legal or ethical roadblocks.

The shortage delayed an Oklahoma execution last month and led Kentucky's governor to postpone the signing of death warrants for two inmates. Arizona is trying to get its hands on the drug in time for its next execution, in late October.

The sole U.S. manufacturer, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., has blamed the shortage on unspecified problems with its raw-material suppliers and said new batches of sodium thiopental will not be available until January at the earliest.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39385026/ns/health-more_health_news/

[L0oniX]

1. Use heroin.

[Solly Mack]

2. My, my, my....

I need to take my irony meter in for servicing.

[Deep13]

3. Are they out of rope?

Seriously, statute law usually prescribes what means of execution are available to the state. If the only legally authorized means is lethal injection using chemicals A, B and C, then that's what they have to use.

[glinda]

4. They are not out of guns.

[proteus_lives]

8. Or rope.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Yet hospitals can get it? Or have all surgeries been canceled?

"Company has said it objects to drug's use in executions
But at least one death penalty expert was skeptical of Hospira's explanation, noting that the company has made it clear it objects to using its drugs for executions. Hospira also makes the two other chemicals used in lethal injections."

[Socal31]

6. Sounds like BS.

Use Ketamine.

[Downwinder]

7. Have to maintain the ritual. n/t