Report: Texas Bought Its Execution Drug From 'Pill Mill'

When Texas tried in the past to get its hands on pentobarbital, a drug used in lethal injections there to mixed success, pharmaceutical companies said they wanted no part of the execution circuit. The state apparently found another conduit. After a review of federal DEA records and files from the state Department of Criminal Justice, NPR found the state's government purchased injectable pentobarbital, from 2019 through at least late last year, from San Antonio's Rite-Away Pharmacy and Medical Supply, a compounding pharmacy in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood that's made headlines over the past decade for various infractions. As the news outlet notes, a compounding pharmacy doesn't just receive and sell drugs from third-party manufacturers—it also has the raw ingredients in-house to make certain drugs itself.

This type of pharmacy can be a benefit to people, say, with allergies to certain ingredients in mass-produced meds. However, the drugs produced in such pharmacies aren't FDA-approved, and the agency says that in the past it has observed "troubling conditions" at compounding sites, including "toaster ovens used for sterilization, pet beds near sterile compounding areas, and operators handling sterile drug products with exposed skin, which sheds particles and bacteria." An ex-Rite-Away pharmacist who talked to NPR said state workers would show up with deliveries of the active ingredient in unmarked cars, as marked cars "would attract attention." The former worker said he then created the drug by combining the pentobarbital powder from the state with alcohol, sterilized water, and "a synthetic liquid substance," and that the pharmacy was paid no more than $100,000 in total for its efforts.

"Maybe [$200-$300] a bottle, and we wouldn't do more than about 10 at a time," he says. "I even had the guys from the [Department of Criminal Justice] saying, you know, you can charge more for this." The pharmacist, who notes he was first approached by a state rep at least seven years ago, says he assuaged his guilt over the sales "with the knowledge that whatever [the inmates on death row] did was deserving of capital punishment." A rep from Texas Defender Service, an anti-death penalty group, accuses Texas of buying the drug from a "pill mill," reports Texas Public Radio. State officials aren't commenting, but a Rite-Away owner, Rohit Chaudhary, concedes the pharmacy was involved in the sales. In 2022, the US DOJ sued another local Rite-Away office owned by the Chaudharys, alleging it dispersed opioids without prescriptions, among other charges. The pharmacy paid a $275,000 penalty. (More Texas stories.)