Giving Yourself More Life

YOU CANNOT ALWAYS GIVE
YOURSELF MORE DAYS,
BUT YOU CAN GIVE
YOUR DAYS MORE LIFE.

~ Anonymous

Of Note: This statement is particularly true for those men and woman serving on death row where the amount of days is court rather than soul determined. Those in opposition to the death penalty were successful recently in blocking one of the death-inducing drugs from being produced in Europe and the UK. Now Texas has responded to that embargo by purchasing pentobarbital, a drug used as a sedative in euthanizing animals, which is readily available in the United States. The FDA has approved its use in humans, but death penalty opponents are already gearing up to pressure the only human pentobarbital manufacturer to cease production. Lundbeck Inc, a subsidiary of a Danish corporation, was looking at ways to stop distribution to prisons for use in executions and has sent letters to the Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma prison systems saying as much. Texas is particularly anxious to procure the drug because 5 prisoners are scheduled to be executed in the next four months, adding to the 450 have been killed over the last 25 years. The Lone Star State is coming under increased scrutiny for a criminal justice system that appears to lack the proper brakes in death penalty cases, which often hit minorities disproportionately. It is the tight international network of death penalty opponents that can be thanked for years of effort in this regard.