USA: TWO MORE STATES TURN OVER EXECUTIONS DRUG IN PROBE

April 1, 2011: Tennessee and Kentucky turned over their supplies of Sodium thiopental to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which is probing how the drug was imported, officials said today.
U.S. authorities seized Georgia's supplies of sodium thiopental n March 15 due to concerns about how the drug was imported, and Georgia's executions are on hold.
Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for Tennessee's Department of Correction, said Friday that the state turned over its supply of the drug at the request of the DEA last week. "There was no allegation that Tennessee has done anything improper," said Carter. "The DEA had some concerns about the import procedures of the domestic vendor that we used."
Carter said the state does not have an execution scheduled until September, but this "will impact our ability to carry out executions."
Separately, an official with knowledge of the action, said that Kentucky also had turned over its supply of the drug. The investigation of the drug imports started after a letter sent earlier this year to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of Georgia death row inmate Andrew Grant DeYoung. In the February 24 letter, De Young attorney John Bentivoglio wrote that Georgia corrections officials ordered the drug from a pharmaceutical distributor in London, England.
The state received 50 vials of sodium thiopental in July, Bentivoglio said, citing public records. But Bentivoglio said the state was not registered to import the controlled substance and failed to notify DEA about the shipment. (Sources: Reuters, 01/04/2011)