No more sodium thiopental from the UK

originally published by: Death Penalty Focus
1st December 2010 – by Sheila Michell

As a British citizen I was relieved to read that our government plans to restrict the export of sodium thiopental, the anesthetic drug used in the three-drug lethal injection procedure commonly adopted in the US. Of course, I would have thought this action was a foregone conclusion, taking into account the EU guidelines and our own government’s Death Penalty Strategy published in October 2010, which clearly states:

The United Kingdom opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle because we believe it undermines human dignity; there is no conclusive evidence of its deterrent value; and any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is irreversible and irreparable.

It was also heartening to read that Archimedes Pharma, the only company manufacturing the drug in this country, welcomed the ruling that a license must be attained by any person or company attempting to export sodium thiopental.

Since the whole of Europe condemns the death penalty in principal, as laid out in EU Regulation 1236/2005, none of the European countries are in a position to ethically allow the exportation of sodium thiopental.

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Posted by Alison Leslie on 06/12/2010. Filed under Capital Punishment,Featured Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry