FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky and Tennessee became the second and third states on Friday to turn over their supplies of a key lethal-injection drug to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which is investigating concerns about how the drug was imported during a national shortage.
Several states scrambled to find a new supplier of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting sedative in a three-drug cocktail used when putting inmates to death, since its primary manufacturer in the United States stopped making the drug.
In March, the DEA seized Georgia’s entire supply, effectively blocking the scheduling of any further executions there. Defense attorneys claim Georgia’s supply came from a fly-by-night British supplier. The DEA did not say why it was seized, except that there were questions about how it was imported.
Officials in both Kentucky and Tennessee said Friday that they also turned over their supplies but gave few details about the federal investigation.
According to records obtained by The Associated Press, Tennessee officials purchased the drug from an overseas supplier last year. Kentucky bought 18 grams of sodium thiopental in February from a Georgia company at a cost of $1,616.83.
Kentucky officials said they were cooperating in an unspecified federal investigation.
