The storefront-housed Elgone Driving Academy in West London is the site of the drug wholesaler that provided sodium thiopental to Arizona prison officials for use in inmate executions. It turns out also that the wholesaler, Dream Pharma, exported not just the anesthetic portion of the lethal three-drug injection, as widely reported, but also the pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride components.
Dream Pharma's source for the sodium thiopental was Archimedes; Hameln Pharmaceuticals supplied the potassium chloride, reports the U.K.'s Independent.
British authorities now prohibit the export of sodium thiopental for executions. They are considering similar action for pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
The Arizona purchase was for 150 500-milligram vials of the drug, the Independent says, enough for six executions. The cost was "roughly double" the payment made for the drugs two years ago. Arizona prison officials provided 24 vials to California.
- see the Independent story
- and here's more