What a concept – use drugs to save lives instead of taking lives.
“We’re running out of all the drugs,” one doctor told the paper.
Over 2,600 people are currently awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Thirty states, plus the federal government, “use lethal injection as their primary method,” while others use it as a backup.
Since the pandemic, states have not even been using these drugs for that. On April 1, a Texas court issued a stay of execution, its third since the outbreak, citing the disruption to the court system.
In their letter, the experts, such as Harvard Medical School’s Prashant Yadav and David Waisel, argued that the drugs death-penalty states typically use to take lives could, instead, be used to help front-line doctors extend them.
“Your stockpile could save the lives of hundreds of people,” they wrote. “At this crucial moment for our country, we must prioritize the needs and lives of patients above ending the lives of prisoners.”
