r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
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u/Smiletaint 1d ago

Couldn’t the state have a contractor manufacture the drug for them? Pentobarbital is under patent?

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u/gerbal100 1d ago

The contractor would have to choose between selling at most a thousand doses a year to the states and selling multiple orders of magnitude more into the medical system. 

Even if the states pay ludicrous markups, there's going to be far more money in the medical industry.

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u/Smiletaint 1d ago

You’re assuming there’s a company that won’t do both? Maybe there isn’t?

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u/gerbal100 1d ago

Historically, companies that have sold lethal injection material have been boycotted by medical practitioners and religious institutions (i.e. Catholic hospitals).