USA - Arizona. Arizona switches to a 2-drug protocol.

Arizona switches to a 2-drug protocol. The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced this morning that it will change the drugs used to execute persons condemned to death. The new drugs, Midazolam and Hydromorphone, will replace the single barbiturate, pentobarbital, which has become unavailable because its manufacturer does not want it to be used to kill people. There are 4 Arizona death row prisoners whose appeals have run out and who are eligible for execution. But the Attorney General's Office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for those prisoners because there were no drugs available to carry out the executions. The Midazolam-Hydromorphone combination was used in January to perform an execution in Ohio, but not without problems. According to press accounts of that execution, the condemned man gasped for air and took more than 20 minutes to die. Arizona inmates executed with pentobarbital or an earlier drug, thiopental, which also is unavailable, usually die in about ten minutes. The Attorney General's press release says Arizona will use a stronger concentration. At least 2 American manufacturer of Midazolam and Hydromorphone has already said that it will refuse to sell those drugs for use in executions.