The Guardian reports that three states in America have paid astronomical sums to avoid a ban on the lethal injection pharmaceuticals used in executions.
According to the newspaper, Republican-controlled states are spending huge sums of taxpayer money buying drugs from illegal dealers in an almost illegal attempt to carry out lethal injection executions.
Documents obtained by The Guardian reveal the full extent of wrongful spending that US states applying the death penalty have initiated in their attempt to resume executions delayed by the pandemic.
The results show that Republican leaders are not only willing to outrun their state and federal laws, but they are also willing to spend lavishly on the process.
The most surprising expense was recorded in Arizona, a state where Republicans hold both the legislature and the governor’s mansion.
According to the text of a heavily revised document obtained by the “Guardian” last October, the Corrections Department had requested 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt, each containing 1 mg, to be shipped in “unmarked jars and boxes.”
At the bottom of the document, the record states: “Amount paid: $ 1,500,000.”
Arizona’s extraordinary $ 1.5 million payments starkly illustrate the extent to which the state is prepared to go and kill death row inmates.
Pentobarbital is a sedative used in executions in Arizona, where 5 grams are injected into an inmate’s body in preparation for a fatal overdose.
Arizona’s bragging about illicit death drugs is quite surprising given that it was carried out in the midst of a deadly pandemic, when many of its citizens were hurt. At the time the payment was made, an estimated 1 million Arizona citizens were hungry, including more than 300,000 children.
It is a felony to dispense with pentobarbital without a prescription under Arizona and federal law. Medical practitioners are not permitted to prescribe medication for use in executions because the loss of a prisoner’s life serves no therapeutic or medical purpose.
Other documents obtained by The Guardian relate to Tennessee and Missouri. In Tennessee, the Corrections Department spent $ 190,000 from 2017 to 2020 obtaining midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, and the three drugs are included in the lethal injection protocol.