THE latest controversy over the always controversial subject of capital punishment: the drugs used to execute people on death row.
Lawyers for death row inmates in Texas and Arizona have filed challenges to the executions questioning the use of specific drugs in the lethal injection of their clients. (...)
In Texas, which carries out more executions than any other state, the controversy is focused on the proposed switch from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital in a three-drug cocktail.
What is the difference?
The two drugs come from the same family: barbiturates, drugs that depress the central nervous system. So, in general, said Dr. John Dombrowski, director of the Washington Pain Center and a board member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, “it’s like if you ask me what’s the difference between Johnnie Walker Blue, Black and Red — they’re all scotch.”
But sodium thiopental has been commonly used as an anesthetic in hospitals. Pentobarbital has a few medical uses in humans, but is often used by veterinarians to anesthetize or euthanize animals.
Source: The New York Times, April 10, 2011
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