USA - Indiana. Indiana plan to use Brevital draws opposition from drug maker

Indiana plan to use Brevital draws opposition from drug maker. The maker of a drug Indiana wants to use for its 1st execution since 2009 says the anesthetic, which has never been used in lethal injections, isn't approved for that purpose and that it only recently learned of the state's intentions. Stephen Mock, spokesman for Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based Par Pharmaceutical, said Friday the company didn't know Indiana had purchased Brevital for use in an execution until seeing news reports about it. He said the company is amending its distribution agreements to state that the product should not be sold to departments of correction but won't try to stop Indiana from using the Brevital it already has. Indiana officials are standing by their decision to switch to Brevital because of a shortage of sodium thiopental. They say the drug, a powerful anesthetic used in hospitals for decades, is appropriate for an execution. "Brevital, the way we intend to use it, will do exactly what it's intended purpose is, which is to induce a deep, painless, unconsciousness," Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison said Friday. Indiana's switch to Brevital, also known as methohexital sodium, as part of its 3-drug lethal injection series is its 1st change in execution protocol since it stopped using the electric chair in 1995. "It sounds to me like Indiana intends to experiment with some new drug and see what happens, and that concerns me greatly," said Steve Schutte, an attorney representing Michael Dean Overstreet, who is expected to be the next inmate executed in Indiana. The use of Brevital was successfully challenged in Oklahoma in 2010 by a lawyer who contended it was experimental and might lead to a "torturous" death. Garrison said the state has enough of the drug on hand to carry out an execution but declined to elaborate. Indiana has not executed an inmate since Dec. 11, 2009, the longest gap in death sentences in the state since 1994. State officials say the delay is the result of cases working their way through the courts. Oklahoma announced in 2010 it would use Brevital to execute Jeffrey David Matthews on the day before his scheduled execution. A federal public defender forced a delay by arguing Brevital had never been used in an execution and the state's new procedure was "untested, potentially dangerous and could very well result in a torturous execution." No ruling on the drug was ever made, however, because the state obtained pentobarbital and used it in Matthews' Jan. 11, 2011, execution. Though 18 states have changed their execution protocols in the past 4 years because of shortages in traditional lethal injection drugs, no state has yet used Brevital, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.