Missouri's Lethal Cloak-And-Dagger Drug Deals Exposed By BuzzFeed

ST. LOUIS, MO — The State of Missouri paid more than $135,000 to a St. Louis pharmacy, Foundation Care, in a series of secretive drug deals to obtain a new source of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital after its previous supplier was exposed in the press, BuzzFeed News reports.

The state has taken extraordinary measures to protect the identity of its new supplier, restricting the name to only a handful of state employees, fighting lawsuits to keep it concealed, and, according to BuzzFeed, sending a high-ranking corrections officer in person to exchange envelopes stuffed with cash for vials of the lethal drug. In state documents, the pharmacy is identified only by the codename M7.

According to BuzzFeed, Foundation Care's history is rife with slapdash practices, including selling tainted drugs, reselling returned drugs, and dispensing drugs without a prescription. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration designated the pharmacy "high-risk" after agents raided the facility, and Foundation Care has settled a number of lawsuits, including one with the State of Kansas for Medicaid fraud and another with the family of a patient who died after using drugs mixed by the pharmacy.

Lawsuits filed against the State of Missouri raise concerns that death row prisoners could suffer excruciating deaths resulting from sloppily-prepared or contaminated drugs. Such executions are banned by the Eight Amendment as cruel and unusual.

Tony Rothert, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which had filed suit to find out how the state was obtaining its lethal drugs, said the Missouri Department of Corrections should be ashamed for hiding the "dirty details" of how it does business.

"Over the years, we’ve seen a pattern emerge with the Missouri Department of Corrections: When they choose to keep public information a secret, it’s often because they have something to hide," he said. "Today, we understand why they have fought so hard to keep Missourians from knowing where they get their execution drugs.

"It says a lot that the only way the state can execute people is to find a pharmacy with significant professional and ethical shortcomings willing to take part in such uncivilized work."

Read the BuzzFeed News investigation here.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Hulton Archive/Getty Images