The fascinating reason why the US is running out of execution drugs.

32 states in America still have the death penalty. And those 32 states are facing a setback to the death penalty.

It’s not protestors or activists, who think that capital punishment is abhorrent. It’s not any state government, which believes it’s time to repeal the death penalty.

It’s because the country is running out of lethal execution drugs.

Last month on Oklahoma, an appeals court postponed the execution of a convicted murderer. The same week, another prisoner’s death sentence was also postponed. The sources for the necessary drugs have dried up within the US – and this has left states that still implement the death penalty struggling to procure more.

The reason the US is running out of execution drugs, is that manufacturers are cutting off supplies – in many cases, because the manufacturers are located in European countries that oppose the death penalty.

CBS News reports:

EU nations are notorious for disagreeing on just about everything when it comes to common policy, but they all strongly – and proudly – agree on one thing: abolishing capital punishment.

Europe saw totalitarian regimes abuse the death penalty as recently as the 20th century, and public opinion across the bloc is therefore staunchly opposed to it.

“Our political task is to push for an abolition of the death penalty, not facilitate its procedure,” said Barba Lochbihler, chairwoman of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights.

Officials in the US have had to turn to alternative sources, trading drugs between prisons or approaching pharmacies that will make drugs to order. Most states in America use a three-drug protocol, in place of more archaic execution methods like hangings and electrocution.

First, a barbiturate such as pentobarbital is used to anesthetise the prisoner. Then, they are paralysed with vecuronium bromide. Finally, their hearts are stopped potassium chloride. The three-drug process means that if any one of the drugs is being withheld – the execution cannot continue.

The situation is made more complex, as prisoners who have been sentenced to die are appealing decisions and lodging lawsuits of their own, arguing that the pharmacies making drugs to order for the US during this time are producing “impure” drugs that might cause pain during the execution process. CBS News reported that:

In Ohio last month, Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die after a previously untested mix of chemicals began flowing into his body, gasping repeatedly as he lay on a gurney. On Jan. 9, Oklahoma inmate Michael Lee Wilson’s last words were: “I feel my whole body burning.”

… Ohio prosecutors counter that condemned inmates are not entitled to a pain-free execution under the Constitution.

Some states – including Missouri, Virginia and Wyoming – are now also planning to bring back execution methods long gone, such as gas chambers, electrocutions and firing squads.

The struggle of the states to keep the death penalty alive, is not just an issue limited to a lack of available drugs. Capital punishment is also becoming less popular among constituents, with many opposing the death penalty full stop. In 1999, there were 98 executions in America. Last year, there were 39.

However, across the country, there are still about 3000 inmates on death row. It’s not clear when they will die, or how they will die.

Or if they will be in the pain.

New Zealand-based artist Henry Hargreaves explores the death penalty in his “No Second” photo series — where he recreates the final meals of prisoners executed in Texas. For more photos, click here.

Would you support the death penalty for some crimes? Or do you think the US should take their dwindling supply of execution drugs as a sign it’s time to end the death penalty?