When the sodium thiopental shortage kerfuffle first arose, I cruised around the 'Net a bit to see who sells the stuff.  There are vendors in India.  Press reports indicate that only American and European sources are approved by the FDA for drugs for medical use.

But of course lethal injection is not a medical use.  The FDA has strict standards to ensure that drugs are safe and effective.  For lethal injection, "safe" and "effective" are opposites.  Some small amount of impurity that could cause a medical patient problems after waking up from the sedative would be a big problem for medical use.  For lethal injection, that is what lawyers call a moot question.

Sure enough, India is where Nebraska got its big stash, JoAnne Young reports in the Lincoln Journal Star.

Will opponents try to make this a basis of a legal challenge?  Of course.  They challenge anything and everything.  Will courts dismiss the challenge summarily?  They should.

This is all short term.  States should move to pentobarbital as quickly as their administrative procedures allow.