Fallin signs bill allowing prisons to store lethal injection drugs
A bill signed into law Tuesday will allow the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to store lethal injection drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Senate Bill 884 was signed by Gov. Mary Fallin on Tuesday, giving the state Corrections Department the authority to obtain federal and state licenses to store controlled drugs. Currently, only physicians and hospitals can gain such licenses.
The main purpose of the law, said co-author Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, is to make sure controlled drugs are stored and kept properly in the prison system.
“There are a lot of psych prisoners that are on controlled substances, and some that come back from the hospital with prescriptions for them,” Cox said.
Today, each prison uses the license of the physician on staff, he said.
“There has been some turnover in that staff, and it was felt they would have some more control if they (the prison) had their own license,” Cox said.
Physicians and hospitals seeking to store controlled substances must be licensed through both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Control.
The storage of execution drugs became an issue for Corrections Department last September, when the lethal injection of Richard Eugene Glossip was halted less than two hours before The storage of execution drugs became an issue for Corrections Department last September, when the lethal injection of Richard Eugene Glossip was halted less than two hours before his execution was set to begin. Execution staff discovered one of the lethal drugs it received for the execution, which had been delivered that day, was not the proper drug. his execution was set to begin. Execution staff discovered one of the lethal drugs it received for the execution, which had been delivered that day, was not the proper drug.
Glossip still awaits execution, one of a few inmates whose lethal injections were put on hold while a multicounty grand jury investigates the drug mix-up.
Then-Corrections Department Director Robert Patton said the drugmaker, who had stored the drug, did not notify them of the mix-up, causing them to postpone Glossip’s death sentence. State law prohibits the naming of execution staff members, including lethal drug manufacturers.
The law will help avoid a similar situation, Cox said.
“So we won’t be caught with this issue of ordering the drug the night before because what’s in protocol isn’t available and they would have to substitute something,” he said. “They would have the medication on hand.”
Dale Baich, a federal public defender representing Glossip, said knowing where the drug will be stored is helpful, but more transparency is needed.
“It is important for the public to know about the source of the drugs, as well as more information about the execution process,” he said. “Only then can we have any confidence that Oklahoma will be able to carry out a constitutionally acceptable execution.”