Europe moves to block trade in medical drugs used in US executions - The Guardian
Public
porsupah alerted me to this story. The European Commission has added pentobarbital and sodium thiopental, among others, to its list of drugs whose export to the US is strictly controlled because they may be used for "capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". The UK has had its own controls in place for more than a year, but this European-level action is obviously somewhat more significant, as German and Danish companies are producers.
Of course, nothing's stopping American companies making their own supplies of the drugs in question -- but the main US producer, Hospira, ceased production a couple of years ago for commercial reasons: having its products connected to executions hurt its image. (I'm a little surprised at that, unless they meant "hurt its image in Europe".) But that's their business. Whether we in Europe supply them is ours -- apparently Obama appealed to Germany a few months ago to supply the US and was told where to get off.
(For those newish to my LJ, I'm a hardline anti-death penalty person, to the extent that I argued publicly right here against the hanging of Saddam Hussein.)
porsupah alerted me to this story. The European Commission has added pentobarbital and sodium thiopental, among others, to its list of drugs whose export to the US is strictly controlled because they may be used for "capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". The UK has had its own controls in place for more than a year, but this European-level action is obviously somewhat more significant, as German and Danish companies are producers.
Of course, nothing's stopping American companies making their own supplies of the drugs in question -- but the main US producer, Hospira, ceased production a couple of years ago for commercial reasons: having its products connected to executions hurt its image. (I'm a little surprised at that, unless they meant "hurt its image in Europe".) But that's their business. Whether we in Europe supply them is ours -- apparently Obama appealed to Germany a few months ago to supply the US and was told where to get off.
(For those newish to my LJ, I'm a hardline anti-death penalty person, to the extent that I argued publicly right here against the hanging of Saddam Hussein.)