USA - Oklahoma. Bill OKs substitute drugs for executions

Bill OKs substitute drugs for executions. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that authorizes the Department of Corrections to use a lethal quantity of "drug or drugs" to execute inmates. That gives Oklahoma prison officials more flexibility to substitute the lethal drugs used to execute condemned inmates. The state of Oklahoma had for years used the anesthetic sodium thiopental as the 1st in a 3-drug cocktail to carry out the death penalty. But Oklahoma substituted pentobarbital last year after a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental. DOC general counsel Michael Oakley says the department has no plans to change its current protocol, which has been upheld in court.