Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center said that all drugmakers, whose products have been used in lethal injections, have said in public that they do not want their products to be used for executions.
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The move shuts off the last remaining easily-available source of drugs used in capital punishment, following similar actions by more than 20 U.S. and European drug makers.
But most states are scrambling to stock up on supplies and are concealing their methods of obtaining lethal injection drugs.
Pfizer’s shares closed even on Friday at 33.19 dollars.
“From the stance of a company making a stand it’s a big deal”, she said.
“States have to decide: Are they going to try to break the law in order to carry out executions, are they going to rely on questionable compounding sources or are they going to change their method of executions or abandon the death penalty altogether?” he said. Pfizer further requires that these Government purchasers certify that the product is for “own use” and will not resell or otherwise provide the restricted products to any other party.
One major shareholder – the New York State’s pension fund, the third largest in the USA – has repeatedly raised fiscal and legal concerns following “botched” procedures in states like OH and Oklahoma.
Lethal injection is the primary means of execution in all 31 death-penalty states.
Pfizer’s announcement was unlikely to have much effect on executions, which have slowed in recent years as drug manufacturers’ prohibitions on the drugs took effect.
Lawyers for inmates facing the death penalty argue that full transparency in the procurement of drugs used in lethal injections is necessary to ensure that they meet quality standards and will not cause undue suffering, the New York Times says.
Prisons generally use a cocktail of three drugs in carrying out lethal injections.
The obstacles to lethal injection have grown in the last five years as manufacturers, seeking to avoid association with executions, have barred the sale of their products to corrections agencies.
The company will only sale to wholesalers who sign contracts that commits them not to sell them to state authorities for the use of executions.
Federal agents seized most of those imported drugs, but imagine if these drugs were used in
executions.
Pressure on the drug companies has not only come from human rights groups. Utah voted a year ago to reinstate the firing squad, while Tennessee expanded its use of the electric chair in 2014, in case “lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional or if the execution drugs can’t be obtained”.
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Many states have experimented with new drug combinations, sometimes with disastrous results, such as the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona in 2014, using the sedative midazolam.
