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Lack of lethal-injection drug means Florida must develop new execution procedure
Orlando Sentinel ^ | Anthony Colarossi

Posted on 01/26/2011 6:30:56 AM PST by greatdefender

Executions of Florida death-row inmates could be on hold for months in the wake of a decision last week by an Illinois drug company to stop producing an anesthetic used in lethal injections here.

Though no new executions are scheduled, the halt in production of the drug effectively means that the state will have to come up with a new procedure to kill inmates. And any new drug "cocktail" developed likely will result in legal challenges down the line.

The drug in question is sodium thiopental, one of three used by Florida and many other states in the lethal-injection sequence. It is an anesthetic administered prior to a muscle relaxant and a third drug that stops the heart.

Currently, 35 states plus the federal government use lethal injection as the primary method of execution, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Most use the same three-drug method.

On Friday, Lake Forest, Ill.-based Hospira Inc. announced in a statement that it "will exit the sodium thiopental market and no longer attempt to resume production of its product, Pentothal."

That company was the sole American producer of the drug.

"We do use that drug in our lethal-injection process," state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. "We are exploring other options. At this point, we're looking at making changes to the procedure. If we change one drug, we might have to change another drug."

(Excerpt) Read more at articles.orlandosentinel.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: drug; inmate; lethalinjection; prison
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1 posted on 01/26/2011 6:31:02 AM PST by greatdefender
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To: greatdefender

What’s wrong with rope?


2 posted on 01/26/2011 6:32:12 AM PST by Huck (The antifederalists were right.)
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To: greatdefender

Firing squad. Very effective.


3 posted on 01/26/2011 6:33:02 AM PST by From The Deer Stand
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To: From The Deer Stand

I always thought the electric chair was particularly effective.


4 posted on 01/26/2011 6:34:05 AM PST by Col Frank Slade
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To: greatdefender

“Lack of lethal-injection drug means Florida must develop new execution procedure”

IIRC all they really needed to do in the first place was fix the short in “Ol Sparky”.


5 posted on 01/26/2011 6:34:28 AM PST by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will, they ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: greatdefender
No prob.


6 posted on 01/26/2011 6:35:32 AM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: greatdefender
There is a plentiful supply of this lethal-injection drug.


7 posted on 01/26/2011 6:36:23 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." -- Barry Soetoro, June 11, 2008)
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To: greatdefender

Strap them down and starve them to death. That was deemed humane by Florida courts.


8 posted on 01/26/2011 6:36:46 AM PST by RJS1950 (The democrats are the "enemies foreign and domestic" cited in the federal oath)
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To: greatdefender

Obamma announced that he’s launching a government run drug research and production facility. My take is that he’s combining chemotherapy drugs with potassium chloride in order to prescribe better end of life care. So as to die quietly, I think he’ll take up the manufacture of sodium thipental, filling the donut hole per se.


9 posted on 01/26/2011 6:37:20 AM PST by blackdog
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To: greatdefender

Maybe they can have a contest and invite suggestions by the victim’s families?

Or go green and fire up ol’ sparky with solar power. Fortunately the prisoner may have to simmer slowly if it’s a cloudy day.


10 posted on 01/26/2011 6:37:35 AM PST by silverleaf (All that is necessary for evil to succeed, is that good men do nothing)
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To: greatdefender

I like the Chinese method. Bullet to the back of the brain and charge the family of the executed for the bullet.


11 posted on 01/26/2011 6:37:38 AM PST by Old Retired Army Guy (tHE)
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To: greatdefender

I Highly recommend the high velocity version of Lead Poisoning


12 posted on 01/26/2011 6:39:13 AM PST by 5Madman2 (There is no such thing as an experienced suicide bomber)
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To: greatdefender

i’m ok with a 2-ton cement cylinder suspended over a chamber.

it’s reusable.

just trying to be green here :)


13 posted on 01/26/2011 6:41:26 AM PST by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: silverleaf
Solar or wind powered electric chair?!

That is a liberal paradox huh? I love it!

I personally like the eastern europe free range method. All the vodka you can drink, in a clearing with running wood chippers.

14 posted on 01/26/2011 6:42:47 AM PST by blackdog
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To: silverleaf
Florida's new prison motto;

It's alway's sunny in Florida!

15 posted on 01/26/2011 6:44:30 AM PST by blackdog
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To: greatdefender

Personally, I advocate giving the condemned an injection of about 10 times the LD100 for their body weight of a barbiturate. Same method used for putting down cats. It works, and given that we give non-lethal doses of the same sedatives in medical settings and no one complains they were cruelly treated by their physicians afterward, the “cruel and unusual” legal challenges would be really hard.

Oddly I was discussing this issue with a colleague just a few days ago. He advocated “a bullet to the base of the brain”, pointing out that the Nazis, who (bizarrely) thought a lot about humane methods for execution favored this method as painless (to the one dying). My colleague who made this suggestion is Jewish, and from his demeanor and what I know of his politics was not making the suggestion as an ironic way of advocating the abolition of capital punishment.

(And yes, the Nazis, not out of any compassion for their victims, but out of a concern that their executioners would turn into sadists and be impossible to reintegrate into the civilian society of the “Thousand Year Reich” once “racial purity” had been attained, did give a lot of thought to humane execution methods.)


16 posted on 01/26/2011 6:46:11 AM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: RJS1950

Well put.


17 posted on 01/26/2011 6:46:17 AM PST by Rational Thought
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To: greatdefender

Um...stake them out in the middle of the everglades and let gators have at ‘em?


18 posted on 01/26/2011 6:46:31 AM PST by Adder (Part 1 Accomplished)
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To: Col Frank Slade

How about feeding time at Gatorland.


19 posted on 01/26/2011 6:47:56 AM PST by screaminsunshine (Surfers Rule)
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To: greatdefender

20 posted on 01/26/2011 6:50:41 AM PST by Mich Patriot (...politics is the second oldest profession...it bears a striking resemblance to the first." RReagan)
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