Texas is running out of the lethal injection drug

**Drachen** · 08-03-2013

Texas' entire stockpile of pentobarbital, the drug used for lethal injections, will expire within a matter of weeks. The state, which since 1982 has executed almost five times more inmates than any other, reportedly has enough stock to execute three more prisoners — provided the executions take place before the drug expires in September — and is having trouble finding a source for the drug. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty organization, Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty organization, drug manufacturers, many of them based in Europe, don't want to participate in executions, and have "clamped down" on exports to the US. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice tells the Associated Press that it currently has no backup plan for when the drug expires, but notes that it's currently "exploring all options." For more on Texas' plight, and the problems other states have faced in procuring lethal drugs, head to The Atlantic.

Bricks? Bullets? Rope? What's next?

http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/8/3/...injection-drug

**Blake** · 08-03-2013

So if it goes past the expiration date, it suddenly stops working?

**Drachen** · 08-03-2013

Originally Posted by Blake

So if it goes past the expiration date, it suddenly stops working?

It reverses course and gives them superpowers and immortality.

Actually, it would probably get stopped by the courts using "cruel and unusual punishment" as the reasoning since it would no longer be at full potency.

**J.T.** · 08-03-2013

Originally Posted by Blake

So if it goes past the expiration date, it suddenly stops working?

Actually, the date on most medical-grade drugs like that are not expiration dates, but more like "warranty" dates from the manufacturer guaranteeing potency. There are lots of stories of prescription drugs still being effective a decade-plus after the date on the bottle.