By Caroline Tucker
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Virginia’s Department of Corrections is planning to pay a secret pharmacy $16,500 for a lethal injection drug, according to the Richmond-Times Dispatch.
The Dispatch reports that the amount is more than 30 times higher than what the costs would have been last year, at just over $500.
“What’s clear is that Virginia is overpaying,” said Robert Dunham, executive director for the Death Penalty Information Center.
Last year, the General Assembly passed a measure that allows the state to contract with a secret supplier instead of obtaining the drugs from a drug manufacturer.
The drugs have been tough to come by because many pharmaceutical companies don’t want to be linked to the death penalty. Governor Terry McAuliffe proposed the legislation in order to prevent the use of the electric chair as an option for executions.
Dunham says because the supplier is secret, there is no way to know why the prices are so high.
“The public has a right to know that their taxpayer money is not being used to buy exorbitantly priced drugs, and that is why the secrecy provisions are so troubling,” said Dunham.
A McAuliffe spokesperson told the Dispatch that this is the “cost of enforcing the law.”
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(Photo: Virginia Government)
