Astrid Galvan and Justin Pitchard report for Association Press:

Compounding the nation's severe shortage of execution drugs, federal authorities have confiscated shipments of a lethal-injection chemical that Arizona and Texas tried to bring in from abroad, saying such imports are illegal.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it impounded orders of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that has been used in past executions in combination with drugs that paralyze the muscles and stop the heart. It currently has no legal uses in the U.S.

Multiple errors in the story here. Thiopental has also been used alone.  When Ohio pioneered the single-drug method, it used thiopental.  The drug was used in medical treatment for decades, and there is no prohibition against using it.  No company ever went through the FDA approval process for it, probably because it has been around since before such approvals were required. 

"Courts have concluded that sodium thiopental for the injection in humans is an unapproved drug and may not be imported into the country," FDA spokesman Jeff Ventura said in a statement.

Actually there is only one case.  The "courts," plural, are the District Court and Court of Appeals in that one case, Cook v. FDA. 

That case was wrongly decided, in my opinion.  The Supreme Court 30 years ago decided in Heckler v. Chaney that the FDA has discretion to not enforce the restrictions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in a context where it was never meant to apply and where its requirements make no sense.  What is "safe and effective" for an execution drug?  Effective for this purpose is necessarily the ultimate unsafe.  However, the Cook court (the same court the Supreme Court reversed in Heckler) thought the importation law was distinguishable from the domestic use law at issue in Heckler.

The state have partly themselves to blame for not fighting that decision.  Now they need to vigorously take this up to the Supreme Court to have Cook overruled or get Congress to abrogate it by statute.  Prohibiting the importation of the drug that is clearly superior to the midazolam approved in Glossip is just crazy.

For the full background and a legislative proposal, see this paper.