Nebraska’s Attempt To Get Banned Execution Drugs From India Foiled

Nebraska's Attempt To Get Banned Execution Drugs
Nebraska was unable to obtaibn two of three drugs used in lethal injection executions because of improper paperwork filed by a pharmaceutical broker in India. File photo by AVN Photo Lab/Shutterstock

LINCOLN, Neb., Sept. 18 (UPI) — Nebraska’s shipment of lethal injection drugs obtained from India and banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was denied because of improper paperwork.

“Improper or missing international paperwork” filed by Indian pharmaceutical company, Harris Pharma, prompted FedEx to keep the shipment from being exported to the United States, FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said Thursday.

Harris Pharma was paid $51,000 by the state for a shipment of sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, two of the three drugs used in Nebraska’s lethal injection protocol.

The drugs were ordered in May, prior to lawmakers’ abolition of the death penalty in the state. They were ordered despite a warning from the FDA that importation of foreign-made sodium thiopental is illegal. A similar warning was issued to Ohio, another state in search of the drug, in June.

Since a boycott by European manufacturers of U.S. states seeking lethal injection drugs, states with capital punishment laws have encountered difficulty obtaining supplies.

Some use special compounding pharmacies to custom-make the drugs; the pharmacies’ identities are kept secret.

Other states have instituted other methods of execution. Tennessee brought back the electric chair and Utah the firing squad, although neither has executed an inmate using the methods.

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