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Ohio swiftly announces change to drug to be used in its lethal injections

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this AP story, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction today announced  that it is "switching its lethal injection drug from a scarce anesthetic to one commonly used in surgery as a shortage of the drug normally used for executions has worsened."  Here are more details: Beginning in March, the state execution team will use a single, powerful dose of pentobarbital, a drug sometimes used to induce surgical comas.  The drug replaces sodium thiopental, which was already scarce when its only U.S. manufacturer announced last week it would no longer produce it. Ohio is following the lead of Oklahoma, which switched to pentobarbital last year and has since used it three times.  However, Ohio, which uses only a single dose of anesthetic to execute inmates, would become the first state to use pentobarbital alone, without two additional drugs that paralyze inmates and stop their hearts...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 25, 2011 (boomark / email).