Texas, which was prevented from acquiring lethal injection drugs by major pharmaceutical firms opposed to executions, has turned to a local compounding pharmacy with a record of numerous safety and cleanliness infractions for their supply, NPR reports. Rite-Away Pharmacy and Medical Supply in suburban San Antonio produced injectable pentobarbital from 2019 through at least late 2023 for Texas to use in executions, records from the state Department of Criminal Justice and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration show. According to inspection documents from the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, Rite-Away was cited more than a dozen times over the past decade. Throughout multiple inspections, the pharmacy repeatedly failed to maintain clean and sterile facilities and failed to keep complete and correctly labeled records and drugs in stock, among other violations.
Opponents of the death penalty argue that the revelations call into question the state's nonchalant approach to handling inmates slated for execution. The Rite-Away branch where the drugs were prepared is a compounding pharmacy, which means it can create drugs in-house from raw ingredients. Multiple states, including Texas in the past, have turned to compounding pharmacies to prepare their supplies of execution drugs from raw materials. Since they make drugs to order, the pharmacies can be helpful for people who are allergic to ingredients in medicines that are mass-produced. However, the finished drug products are not approved by the FDA, and the FDA has acknowledged that it has “observed troubling conditions during many of its inspections of compounding facilities including toaster ovens used for sterilization, pet beds near sterile compounding areas, and operators handling sterile drug products with exposed skin, which sheds particles and bacteria, among many others.” The use of execution drugs prepared in compounding pharmacies has raised issues for prisoners and their attorneys, who have argued that injecting drugs in poor condition into prisoners' veins could violate their constitutional protection against cruel or unusual punishment.