Let's Switch Back To Bullets

The sole U.S. manufacturer of a key lethal injection drug it is ending production because of death-penalty opposition overseas.  Rather than delay executions across the country, can't we use some other methods?

Hospira Inc. said it decided in recent months to switch manufacturing sodium thiopental from its North Carolina plant to a more modern factory in Liscate, Italy, but Italian authorities demanded a guarantee the drug would not be used to put inmates to death — an assurance the company said it was not willing to give.

All but one of the 35 states that employ lethal injection use sodium thiopental, used as part of a three-drug combination that sedates and paralyzes the inmate and stops the heart. There are other, similar sedatives on the market, but to substitute one drug for another would require new laws or lengthy administrative processes in some states, and could also lead to lawsuits from death row. And because of what Hospira described as problems with its raw-material suppliers, sodium thiopental is already scarce in the U.S., and any batches Hospira made before it suspended manufacturing more than a year ago are set to expire this year.

Hospira has long deplored the drug's use in executions but said it regretted having to stop production, because sodium thiopental has legitimate medical purposes as an anesthetic used in hospitals (and is also highly profitable). Hospira continues to make two other drugs used in executions — pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Without providing details, the company's state-of-the-art Italian factory was the only plant capable of manufacturing sodium thiopental.

Italy does not have capital punishment and opposes the death penalty, and passed a measure in Parliment last month requiring Hospira to ensure that the drug would be used only for medical purposes and would not find its way into prisons. The current shortage of the drug has delayed or disrupted executions in Arizona, California, Kentucky, Ohio and Oklahoma. Sodium Thiopental made in Britain was used in Arizona, Arkansas, California and Tennessee, but was banned its export for use in executions last November.

Sure the electric chair and firing squads are messy, but if the international community is going to limit our humane drug executions, maybe we need to switch over to help them change their minds.