The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the statute establishing federal U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of certain substances is regulated. It was passed by the 91st United States Congress as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon. The Act also served as the national implementing legislation for the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal, thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal, is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic. It is the thiobarbiturate analog of pentobarbital, and an analog of thiobarbital. Sodium thiopental was a core medicine in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, but was supplanted by propofol. Despite this, thiopental is listed as an acceptable alternative to propofol, depending on local availability and cost of these agents. It was previously the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States, but the US manufacturer Hospira stopped manufacturing the drug in 2011 and the European Union banned the export of the drug for this purpose. Although thiopental abuse carries a dependency risk, its recreational use is rare.
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broader sense to include euthanasia and other forms of suicide. The drugs cause the person to become unconscious, stops their breathing, and causes a heart arrhythmia, in that order.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Ohio, although all executions have been suspended indefinitely by Governor Mike DeWine until a replacement for lethal injection is chosen by the Ohio General Assembly. The last execution in the state was in July 2018, when Robert J. Van Hook was executed via lethal injection for murder.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Oklahoma.
H. Lundbeck A/S is a Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research, development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of pharmaceuticals across the world. The company’s products are targeted at brain diseases, including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and migraine.
Generally recognized as safe (GRAS) is a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designation that a chemical or substance added to food is considered safe by experts under the conditions of its intended use. An ingredient with a GRAS designation is exempted from the usual Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) food additive tolerance requirements. The concept of food additives being "generally recognized as safe" was first described in the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, and all additives introduced after this time had to be evaluated by new standards. The FDA list of GRAS notices is updated approximately each month, as of 2021.
Pentobarbital (US) or pentobarbitone is a short-acting barbiturate typically used as a sedative, a preanesthetic, and to control convulsions in emergencies. It can also be used for short-term treatment of insomnia but has been largely replaced by the benzodiazepine family of drugs.
Phenytoin/pentobarbital is an animal drug product used for euthanasia, which contains a mixture of phenytoin and pentobarbital. It is administered as an intravenous injection to give animals a quick and humane death.
Hospira was an American global pharmaceutical and medical device company with headquarters in Lake Forest, Illinois. It had approximately 19,000 employees. Before its acquisition by Pfizer, Hospira was the world's largest producer of generic injectable pharmaceuticals, manufacturing generic acute-care and oncology injectables, as well as integrated infusion therapy and medication management systems. Hospira's products are used by hospitals and alternate site providers, such as clinics, home healthcare providers and long-term care facilities. It was formerly the hospital products division of Abbott Laboratories. On September 3, 2015, Hospira was acquired by Pfizer, who subsequently sold off the medical devices portion of Hospira to ICU Medical.
In the field of pharmacy, compounding is preparation of custom medications to fit unique needs of patients that cannot be met with mass-produced products. This may be done, for example, to provide medication in a form easier for a given patient to ingest, or to avoid a non-active ingredient a patient is allergic to, or to provide an exact dose that isn't otherwise available. This kind of patient-specific compounding, according to a prescriber's specifications, is referred to as "traditional" compounding. The nature of patient need for such customization can range from absolute necessity to individual optimality to even preference.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
John David Duty was an American who was executed in Oklahoma for first-degree murder. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, he was the first person in the United States to have been put to death with pentobarbital. A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental led the state to incorporate the substitution into its protocol for lethal injections. Duty's case gained media attention because pentobarbital had typically been used to euthanize animals.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Arizona. After the execution of Joseph Wood in 2014, executions were temporarily suspended but resumed in 2022. On January 23, 2023, newly inaugurated governor Katie Hobbs ordered a review of death penalty protocols and in light of that, newly inaugurated attorney general Kris Mayes issued a hold on any executions in the state.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Montana.
Carey Dean Moore was a convicted murderer, executed by lethal injection by the state of Nebraska. It was the first execution in Nebraska using lethal injection, and the state's first execution since 1997. The execution was the first in the United States to use fentanyl.
Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the standards for challenging methods of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that when a convict sentenced to death challenges the State's method of execution due to claims of excessive pain, the convict must show that other alternative methods of execution exist and clearly demonstrate they would cause less pain than the state-determined one. The Court's opinion emphasized the precedential force of its prior decisions in Baze v. Rees and Glossip v. Gross.
A euthanasia solution is a drug-containing aqueous solution for intentionally ending life to either relieve pain and suffering or execute convicts. The drugs used in euthanasia solution do not only need to be safe to personnel, but they also need to have a rapid onset of action and minimize the possible pain felt by humans and animals. To satisfy these requirements, the active ingredients in the euthanasia solution are usually anaesthetics, respiratory depressants, cardiotoxic drugs and cytotoxic drugs.
Richard Gerald Jordan is an American man on death row in Mississippi for the 1976 murder of 34-year-old Edwina Marter, the wife of a bank executive. As of 2022, Jordan is the state's oldest and longest-serving death row inmate. Though he admitted to the crime and his guilt has never been seriously called into question, Jordan has filed multiple successful legal challenges to his sentence, and because of this, he has been sentenced to death four times.
