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Virginia's lethal injection costs to skyrocket as secret drug vendor charges $16.5K per execution
By fredericksburg.com- Graham Moomaw
Published: 09/30/2016

The Virginia Department of Corrections has agreed to pay a secret supplier of lethal injection drugs $16,500 per execution under a new state contract, more than 30 times higher than what prison officials say they would have had to pay last year for a supply of chemicals sufficient for one execution.

In early 2015, an equivalent batch of drugs would have cost $525.14, according to the Department of Corrections. In 2013 and 2014, a batch would have cost a little less than $250, according to the agency, which calculated the costs by reviewing past invoices.

Virginia’s process for buying execution drugs changed dramatically this year after the General Assembly passed a law allowing the Department of Corrections to buy special-ordered drugs from compounding pharmacies rather than getting them directly from pharmaceutical manufacturers. The legislation was intended to make it easier for the state to purchase drugs that have become increasingly difficult to acquire as pharmaceutical companies pull back from participating in the death penalty.

The law, which took effect July 1, allows the new vendor’s identity to remain hidden, a provision Gov. Terry McAuliffe said was necessary to entice companies to do business with Virginia without fear of exposure. McAuliffe, a Democrat, proposed the secrecy bill this year as an alternative to a Republican proposal to use the electric chair as a fallback option if the state should ever be unable to carry out a scheduled execution due to a lack of drugs. At the time, McAuliffe said lawmakers had a choice between effectively ending the death penalty or finding a new way to purchase chemicals.

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