The Texas prison system will soon be out of pentobarbital, one of the drugs used during lethal injections. The state plans on executing two inmates—one tomorrow and one on March 18—after which, their supply will be so low that it is unclear if they will be able to proceed with four more execution scheduled for next month. Last year, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had to find a new supplier for the drugs after the Associated Press published the name of the company selling them the chemicals. Since then, a judge in Texas ruled that the state had to reveal the name of its current supplier, but it has refused and appealed the ruling. Prison officials did not say whether the ruling has prevented them from finding a company willing to sell drugs used in lethal injections, but drug companies have become increasingly hesitant to supply execution chemicals. Supplies of lethal injection drugs have recently run low in several states. As a result, prison officials in some cases have used experimental cocktails of different drugs, leading to several gruesome botched executions …
