Some executions in the US have been put on hold because of a shortage of one of the drugs used in lethal injections from coast to coast. Several of the 35 states that rely on lethal injection are either scrambling to find sodium thiopental – an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious – or considering using another drug. But both routes are strewn with legal or ethical roadblocks. The shortage delayed an Oklahoma execution last month and led Kentucky's governor to postpone the signing of death warrants for two inmates. Arizona is trying to get its hands on the drug in time for its next execution, in late October. California said the shortage will force it to stop executions Friday, three hours after an inmate is scheduled to die, when its stock expires. The sole US manufacturer, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Illinois, has blamed the shortage on unspecified problems with its raw-material suppliers and said new batches of sodium thiopental will not be available until January at the earliest. Nine states have a total of 17 executions scheduled between now and the end of January, including Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. “We are working to get it back onto the market for our customers as soon as possible,” Hospira spokesman Dan Rosenberg said. Sodium thiopental is a barbiturate, used primarily to anesthetize surgical patients and induce medical comas. It is also used to help terminally ill people commit suicide and sometimes to euthanize animals.
