USA - Tennessee. Tennessee switches from 3-drug method to single-drug method with pentobarbital.

Tennessee switches from 3-drug method to single-drug method with pentobarbital. The Tennessee Department of Correction said today that it's switching from a 3-drug method to a single-drug method. The new protocol now calls for using the sedative pentobarbital only to put an inmate to death, according to the news release issued by spokeswoman Dorinda Carter. Tennessee's supply of sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs used in lethal injections, was turned over to the federal government in 2011 over questions about how it was imported. In addition to the shortage of sodium thiopental, records obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request indicated that Tennessee has also been unable to get pancuronium bromide. A memo dated February 2012 stated that the pharmaceutical distributor Morris & Dickson informed the state that pancuronium bromide was recalled in May 2010 and will not be reissued. Carter said in an email to the AP today that the state has no supplies of either sodium thiopental or pancuronium bromide. The last inmate executed by lethal injection in the state was Cecil Johnson, on Dec. 2, 2009, and the Tennessee attorney general's office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date since 2010. Tennessee has 83 inmates on death row.