A judge has blocked Nevada from injecting a death row inmate with fentanyl, just hours before the state was set to become the first to administer the death penalty this way.
Double-murderer Scott Dozier was to be executed with a trio of drugs: the sedative, midazolam; an opioid, fentanyl; and a paralytic, cisatracurium.
Midazolam’s company, Alvogen, had sued the state over how the prison acquired the drug and demanded that it be returned.
Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez ruled in favor of the pharmaceutical company, forcing the never-before-used lethal concoction to be put on hold for 60 days, according to a CNN report.
The state opted to use the synthetic opioid on Dozier because it could not obtain alternative drugs. Dozier’s execution would have been the state’s first in 12 years due to pushback from pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate painkiller 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug led to 20,000 overdose deaths in 2016, according to federal data.
State officials will not disclose how they obtained the drugs, but said they were ordered through Cardinal Health.
[Also read: House passes bill aimed at stemming international shipments of fentanyl]
