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The U.K. Needs to Stop Fueling Executions in the U.S.
  1. Signatures
    392 out of 500
    Petitioning
    1. U.K. Secretary of State for Business Innovation & Skills (Vince Cable)
  2. Created By
    Charles Davis
    San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

British Business Secretary Vince Cable has the power to stop pharmaceutical companies in the U.K. from supplying the lethal injection drugs used in American executions. In November, he did just that, restricting the export of sodium thiopental to the U.S., citing the British government's "moral opposition" to capital punishment.

But Cable has ignored the fact that British firms are continuing to sell other lethal injection drugs -- potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide -- to states like California and Arizona desperate for new supplies of killer cocktails since the only U.S. supplier of such drugs has long since run out.

Though British human rights group Reprieve has repeatedly asked Cable to ban the export of such drugs, one of his spokesmen recently told the BBC that he'd received no such formal request. So it seems like Cable needs a reminder: if Britain's opposition to the death penalty is to be more than just rhetorical, he needs to fulfill his moral duty to ensure the U.K. is not complicit in a punishment it claims to oppose.

Ask Secretary Cable to immediately impose a ban on the export of the drugs that are fueling America's death penalty.

Recent Signatures

Ban the Export of Lethal Injection Drugs to the U.S.

Secretary Cable,

In November, you restricted the export of sodium thiopental to the United States, saying that doing so "would serve to underline the United Kingdom’s moral opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances.” Today I am writing to encourage you to again underline the U.K.'s objections to capital punishment by banning the sale of potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide to the U.S., drugs that states like California and Arizona have reportedly been purchasing from British pharmaceutical companies so they can continuing executing prisoners.

If Britain's opposition to the death penalty should be more than just rhetorical. Please take the concrete step of banning the export of these drugs, lest you too become complicit in the American death machine.

[Your name]

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