The top trade group for compounding pharmacists in the United States is urging its members to stop working with drugs that are used to carry out executions against American prisoners by way of lethal injection, according to a new report.
Amid mounting concerns
surrounding lethal injection drugs – as well as a slew of
high-profile instances of executions gone awry in recent months –
the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP) is
“discouraging its members from preparing or dispensing
drugs” used to execute people, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“The move reflects growing concern among some compound
pharmacists that some states – in response to ongoing controversy
over the supply of drugs for lethal injections – may decide to
alter regulations in ways that would cause pharmacists to face
legal problems,” WSJ reporter Ed Silverman wrote on Tuesday.
“We have concerns about what may occur,” IACP chief
executive David Miller told Silverman.
This is big: Largest compound-pharmacy trade group to
discourage members from supplying execution drugs: http://t.co/RAm6stfTul
— Matt Ford (@fordm) March 24,
2015
As debates rage on in the US concerning capital punishment, a new
discussion has emerged in recent years upon the absence in
America of certain drugs that have previously been used in the
narcotic cocktails administered to death row inmates.
A decade-old ban in the European Union prohibits EU nations from
exporting execution drugs, and the subsequent shortage that it
spawned in the US has since prompted prison officials to seek out
compounding pharmacists to mix and make new sorts of cocktails to
carry out death sentences.
As states have rushed to ready new lethal injection recipes,
however, a series of snafus have taken place. It took 43 minutes
for Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer from Oklahoma, to die
from an experimental cocktail during a jailhouse execution last
year, and a lawsuit filed shortly after by 21 other death row
inmates alleged that the state is “engaging in a program of
biological experimentation on captive and unwilling human
subjects.” In January, the Supreme Court of the United States
said it would review the case.
READ MORE: Supreme Court to review Oklahoma execution
procedure after botched lethal injection
Meanwhile, it may soon be even harder for corrections officials
to acquire lethal narcotics if Miller’s urging is taken into
consideration. The IACP represents approximately 3,700
pharmacists who compound – or mix and customize – drugs, and
Silverman reported that the American Pharmacists Association, a
group that represents roughly 62,000 pharmacists from coast to
coast, will weigh taking a similar stance at a meeting later this
week, citing an unnamed official within the trade group.
Earlier this month, the first woman set to be executed in Georgia
in half a century was given a reprieve after state officials
cited “abundance of caution” about “cloudy”
drugs used in the lethal injection cocktail they intended on
using. Georgia planned to use pentobarbital – known commercially
as the sedative Nembutal – which causes death by respiratory
failure in sufficiently high doses. Calibrating the dose has been
a challenge, however, as the compound must be combined at
pharmacies specifically for the purpose. Lundbeck, the Danish
company that owns the rights to the drug, banned its sale for the
purpose of executions in 2013. It followed public outcry in
Denmark, where the death penalty was abolished in 1930.
In February, US Attorney General Eric Holder said he favored a
moratorium on executing prisoners until the Supreme Court can
weigh in on the Oklahoma lawsuit.
“There’s always the possibility that mistakes will be
made…it’s for that reason that I am opposed to the death
penalty,” Holder said. “I think fundamental questions
about the death penalty need to be asked. And among them, the
Supreme Court’s determination as to whether or not lethal
injection is consistent with our Constitution is one that ought
to occur. From my perspective, I think a moratorium until the
Supreme Court made that determination would be appropriate.”