by By Julie Watson
The American Pharmacists Association on Monday adopted a policy that discourages its members from providing death-penalty drugs.
The new guidelines could make it tough for death penalty states, like Texas, that have been looking at made-to-order execution drugs from compounding pharmacies as the answer to a nationwide shortage of execution drugs.
The association's governing body approved the policy at a meeting in San Diego.
The group lacks the legal authority to bar compounding pharmacies from selling execution drugs. But its policies set ethical standards followed by pharmacists, just as the American Medical Association does for doctors.
Prison departments have had to buy made-to-order execution drugs from compounding pharmacies in recent years because the pharmaceutical companies they used to buy their drugs from now refuse to sell them for use in lethal injections after coming under pressure from death penalty opponents.
But now the compounded version is also difficult to come by, with most pharmacists reluctant to expose themselves to possible harassment by death-penalty opponents.
Texas' prison agency scrambled this month to find a supplier to replenish its inventory, then found a supply from a compounded pharmacy it won't identify. Also this month, an execution in Georgia was put off when prison authorities questioned the appearance of the compounded pentobarbital they planned to use.
After a troubling use of a two-drug method last year, Ohio said it will use compounded versions of either pentobarbital or sodium thiopental in the future, though it doesn't have supplies of either drug and hasn't said how it will obtain them. All executions scheduled this year were pushed to 2016 to give the state more time to find the drugs.
Others states are turning to alternative methods.
Tennessee has approved the use of the electric chair if lethal-injection drugs aren't available, while Utah has reinstated the firing squad as a backup method if it can't obtain the drugs. Oklahoma is considering legislation that would make it the first state to allow the use of nitrogen gas as an execution method.
Explore further: Pharmacist survey shows huge growth in compounded menopausal hormone therapy
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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by By Julie Watson
The American Pharmacists Association on Monday adopted a policy that discourages its members from providing death-penalty drugs.
The new guidelines could make it tough for death penalty states, like Texas, that have been looking at made-to-order execution drugs from compounding pharmacies as the answer to a nationwide shortage of execution drugs.
The association's governing body approved the policy at a meeting in San Diego.
The group lacks the legal authority to bar compounding pharmacies from selling execution drugs. But its policies set ethical standards followed by pharmacists, just as the American Medical Association does for doctors.
Prison departments have had to buy made-to-order execution drugs from compounding pharmacies in recent years because the pharmaceutical companies they used to buy their drugs from now refuse to sell them for use in lethal injections after coming under pressure from death penalty opponents.
But now the compounded version is also difficult to come by, with most pharmacists reluctant to expose themselves to possible harassment by death-penalty opponents.
Texas' prison agency scrambled this month to find a supplier to replenish its inventory, then found a supply from a compounded pharmacy it won't identify. Also this month, an execution in Georgia was put off when prison authorities questioned the appearance of the compounded pentobarbital they planned to use.
After a troubling use of a two-drug method last year, Ohio said it will use compounded versions of either pentobarbital or sodium thiopental in the future, though it doesn't have supplies of either drug and hasn't said how it will obtain them. All executions scheduled this year were pushed to 2016 to give the state more time to find the drugs.
Others states are turning to alternative methods.
Tennessee has approved the use of the electric chair if lethal-injection drugs aren't available, while Utah has reinstated the firing squad as a backup method if it can't obtain the drugs. Oklahoma is considering legislation that would make it the first state to allow the use of nitrogen gas as an execution method.
Explore further: Pharmacist survey shows huge growth in compounded menopausal hormone therapy
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Medical Xpress on facebook
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Pharmacists urged not to assist US executions (Update)
Several human rights and anti-death penalty groups have asked the American Pharmacists Association to prohibit members from participating in executions, a request that comes as states increasingly turn to pharmacists for ...
Execution drugs spark controversy as supplies dwindle
The United States is turning to new drugs for lethal injections as supplies of the current standard dwindle, sparking lawsuits from death row prisoners that the changes will cause undue suffering.
Pharmacist survey shows huge growth in compounded menopausal hormone therapy
Among prescriptions filled for menopausal hormone therapy (HT) in the U.S., almost half now are custom-compounded "bioidentical" hormones, according to analysis of a recent survey of nearly 500 pharmacists. The study results ...
Lethal injection comes under new scrutiny after botched execution
The botched execution in April of a man convicted of murder brought to the fore of national consciousness the precarious state of capital punishment. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazi ...
Another manufacturer blocks drug for execution use (Update)
(AP)—A manufacturer of the anesthetic blamed for Michael Jackson's death said Thursday it won't sell propofol for use in U.S. executions, a setback for Missouri and other states looking for an alternative after other drug ...
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