Lethal drugs in capital punishment in USA: History, present, and future perspectives.

Lethal injection is the preferred method for the execution of condemned prisoners in the United States. A recent decision of The European Union to prohibit the export of drugs used in capital punishment to the USA along with domestic firms ceasing to manufacture these drugs has resulted in a drug shortage and a search for alternative drugs and new drug combinations that have not been previously validated for inducing death. As a consequence, some of the executions did not proceed as expected and sparked public debate regarding whether recent executions by lethal injection serve the purpose of avoiding "cruel and unusual punishment" in executions.