The state with the highest execution rate in the nation, Texas, is scheduled to run out of one of the key drugs needed for administering lethal injections by September, according to the BBC.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said that the state will run out of pentobarbital in September and that they will need to find an alternative. A switch to propofol is being considered by prison officials, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Drug manufacturers have ceased to make some of the drugs originally used in a lethal injection, including pentobarbital, forcing prison officials to figure out new combinations of drugs to use for executions. Texas started using pentobarbital only one year ago when manufacturers stopped producing pancuronium bromide, one of the three drugs that had been used in executions for decades, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
"When Texas raises a flag that it's having a problem, obviously numerically it's significant around the country because like they're doing half the executions in the country right now," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Associated Press.
"The states really scramble to go all over to get drugs," Dieter said. "Some went overseas, some got them from each other. But these manufacturers, a number of them are based in Europe, don't want to participate in our executions. So they've clamped down as much as they can."
An execution was carried out in Texas on Wednesday and at least two of them are scheduled for September. At least five more executions are scheduled beyond September. Prison officials would not say when exactly the pentobarbital was going to run out or if any executions would be delayed due to the shortage, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Missouri has considered using propofol in lethal injections but the Missouri Supreme Court has held up the use of the drug for executions. Recently the Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has suggested that the state return to executing prisoners with gas although the state does not even have a gas chamber, according to the Associated Press.
Since resuming executions in 1982 Texas has executed 503 inmates, far more than any other state, according to the Associated Press.
