California Buys Batch of Lethal Drug from U.K.

By NATHAN KOPPEL

California has purchased a large supply of a drug used in executions from a British pharmaceutical company, according to a spokeswoman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The state ordered the drug before the U.K. last month said it planned to limits exports of the drug, thiopental sodium, because of the U.K.'s "moral opposition to the death penalty."

Prison officials in various states have sought to obtain thiopental overseas owing to a shortage of the drug in the U.S., which has caused executions to be delayed across the country.

Thiopental, an anesthetic, is used to render inmates unconscious before other, potentially painful drugs are injected to complete an execution. Criminal defense lawyers and death-penalty opponents have fought efforts to import the drug, saying foreign-made thiopental could put condemned inmates at risk of suffering a painful execution.

California is due to obtain 521 grams of thiopental manufactured in Britain, the largest overseas purchase of the drug by prison officials to be disclosed to date. California uses 6 grams of thiopental per execution.

The drug was made by U.K.-based Archimedes Pharma, but California bought it through a U.K. distributor the state didn't identify. "It was acquired in accordance with all state and federal law," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman at the California corrections department. "Our efforts to acquire this drug are in accordance with our mandate to carry out California law, which mandates capital punishment."

"Archimedes does not export [thiopental] to the U.S.," the company said in a statement. "Archimedes does not have information on specific end purchasers or users of its products."

Death-penalty lawyers still could challenge whether the use of foreign-made thiopental violates California inmates' constitutional right to be executed in a relatively safe, painless manner.

"There are still a lot of unanswered questions," said Natasha Minsker, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of North California. "Do these [foreign] drugs work the same as the American version? Do they have the same efficacy?"

Write to Nathan Koppel at nathan.koppel@wsj.com

via online.wsj.com

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