Death Row, Where Is Thy Sting? Lethal Injection Drug in Short Supply

Sept. 20, 2010 — -- There has perhaps been no better time to be on death row than right now.

A shortage of a key ingredient of the lethal injection cocktail used by prisons is forcing some states to delay scheduled executions until next year. The crucial component, sodium thiopental -- better known as Pentothal -- is an anesthetic that is combined with two other drugs that complete the fatal TKO.

Pentothal is produced by only one pharmaceutical company -- Hospira -- that actually opposes its use in lethal injections. A spokesman told ABC News that the drug's active pharmaceutical agent is supplied by a third party and currently unavailable until early 2011.

"We are working to get it back onto the market for our customers as soon as possible," spokesman Dan Rosenberg wrote in a statement.

Perhaps ironically, among those customers are most of the 35 states where the death penalty is legal. Last week Kentucky was scheduled to use its last remaining dose of Pentothal in the lethal injection of death row inmate Gregory Wilson, but his execution was postponed for legal reasons.

"We have enough dosage to carry out one of the execution protocols," said Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. "We've been trying to secure [more] since at least March and have been unsuccessful."

Even if his stay comes to an end, Wilson still may be in luck: Kentucky's Pentothal stash has an expiration date of Oct. 1. Aside from Wilson, there are two other inmates on death row in the state whose fates are held in limbo by the shortage.

Oklahoma was compelled to stay the execution of Jeffrey Matthews last month because of a shortage of Pentothal. The state planned to use a different anesthetic in its place, but lawyers for the inmate successfully argued the new drug was "nothing more than experimental."

Even among those who are agnostic on the question of whether the death penalty should be legal, there is an awareness that lethal injection can be an extremely painful way to go if not properly -- pardon the pun -- executed.

Penthothal is the first drug an inmate receives. It is a short-acting rapid-onset barbiturate and general anesthetic that numbs the patient for the double-whammy that follows: a paralyzing agent that shuts down the body's muscular and respiratory systems, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart, causing death by cardiac arrest.