A chemical company in Connecticut appears to be resuming production of a drug used in federal executions at a prison in Indiana.
Lawmakers and activists opposed to the death penalty say Hamden, Connecticut-based chemical supplier Absolute Standards, Inc., sold pentobarbital to the first Trump administration for 13 lethal injections in 2020 and 2021.
Read more: CT lawmakers weigh ban on drugs used for executions in Indiana
Following a media campaign and scrutiny from local lawmakers, the company announced last year that it had no plans to resume making the drug. Now, the company has re-listed the drug in its catalogue, going for $495 per milliliter unit.
"It's a little bit surprising but, actually, nothing should surprise us these days," Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, which opposes executions, said Thursday. "If there's money to be made, then somebody's gonna try to make it."
Last year, the president of Absolute Standards announced in a letter to lawmakers that his company would stop making the drug following the campaign by Death Penalty Action and another group calling attention to its reported ties to executions.
At the time, the lawmakers were preparing to file legislation seeking to ban companies from making drugs used in executions. They introduced the bill this year at the start of Connecticut's legislative session. The relevant language has since been incorporated into a different bill that advanced from the Judiciary Committee earlier this week.
Absolute Standards didn't respond to messages from WFIU/WTIU News this week.
Read more: New document shows Indiana paid $900,000 for execution drug
Also last year, Indiana acquired a supply of pentobarbital for state executions. The Department of Corrections used the drug to carry out one lethal injection last year and plans to use the same drug to execute a prisoner next week.
State officials refuse to say where they obtained the drug, citing a 2017 secrecy law.
