Psst, Hey Alan, Need Some Execution Drugs? Delaware DOC Gets Phenobarbital on the Sly
Delaware officials are so hell-bent on executing prisoners that they've sunk to procuring drugs for lethal injections through secret exchanges and backdoor deals.
Emails obtained by the Associated Press show just how the head of Delaware's Department of Corrections enlisted a drugstore owner turned bureaucrat to acquire pentobarbital, the sedative component of the state's new three-drug execution formula, now that U.S. production of sodium thiopental has been shut down since early 2011.
Last spring, Delaware DOC Commissioner Carl Danberg contacted Alan Levin, the state's economic development director and former owner of Happy Harry's drugstore chain, which he sold to Walgreen's in 2006 before becoming a public servant. Knowing Levin had spent more than a decade cultivating connections in the pharmaceutical industry, Danberg asked him to make a few calls.
So in May 2011, according to emails recovered by the AP, Levin contacted Mike Kaufmann, CEO of the pharmaceutical division of Cardinal Health, one of the largest wholesale distributors of prescription drugs in the U.S.
"While I know this is a bit of a political issue, since Cardinal is not located in Delaware, I believed it may be easier for Cardinal to do this." Levin wrote to Kaufmann. "Is (pentobarbital) something that Cardinal would be interested in selling to the state of Delaware'? If not, do you have any recommendations who else we can pursue? While our need is not immediate, we do believe that we may need the drugs within the next 90 days."
Once Levin hooked up Danberg with his connect, "things fell into place," Danberg told the AP.
The drugs that shipped to Delaware's DOC from Cardinal in June 2011 — including pentobarbital. pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride — are enough to last for several executions, beginning with that of Shannon Johnson, a convicted murderer who was executed in April 2012.
Though Danberg, Levin and other state officials did plenty to conceal the process of acquiring the drugs, Levin told the AP that he was "happy to help facilitate" the deal.
Denmark-based Lundbeck, the manufacturer of pentobarbital, had told U.S. prison officials as early as January 2011 that the drug was not intended for lethal injections and asked for its use in executions to cease, which is exactly why Danberg wanted the deal to be kept secret.
"I did not want it netting outside the smallest number of people as possible how we were pursuing the chemicals because I wanted to make sure we had a supply of the chemicals first," Danberg told the AP. "I did not want the supplier of the chemicals to go public, to be publicly known, simply because I did not want that source to dry up."
Sources: The Associated Press, ww.delawareonline.com
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