Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck Inc. will now be doing more to ensure one of their products, pentobarbital, is not used to execute people. Lundbeck Inc., the sole U.S. manufacturer of the drug, released a statement pointing to new protocol, such as switching to specialist wholesalers and “end user clauses”, which should make it more difficult for states to obtain the drug for executions. The company’s chief executive, Ulf Wiinberg, also took the step of sending letters to state officials “warning that it is not safe to use the drug in untested ways, including in lethal injection protocols.” Wiinberg made it clear that Lundbeck Inc. is “willing to try to stop Nembutal’s (pentobarbital) misuse even if we can’t guarantee that it will necessarily work. Obviously we would like to do the right thing.” Several states began using pentobarbital following a shortage of sodium thiopental, including Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

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Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be highly dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Last week the North Carolina House of Representatives passed a bill that will keep people with severe and persistent mental illness off death row. The bill, according to sponsor Sarah Stevens, states that if “someone has a severe mental disability they shall not receive capital punishment.” For defendants to meet the requirements outlined in the bill, they must have a documented history of mental illness prior to committing the crime.  Representative Rick Glazier emphasized this point, arguing, “the important thing to summarize is this is not the person who comes in and who is slightly depressed or ate a package of Twinkies that day and got a sugar high. This is the person who has the severe pervasive mental disability. The defense has the burden of proof to show and to ultimately prove to the jury or judge by clear convincing evidence that the mental disability manifested some time prior to the act.” Defendants who are found to have a history of mental illness can still be found guilty and are only exempted from capital punishment. Proponents of the bill also argue that, if enacted, the new law will save the North Carolina Department of Justice from subsequent appeals that are the norm when mental health becomes a factor in trials. Such appeals cost the state roughly $10,080 per hearing. Having passed in the House of Representatives, the bill will now be taken up in the Senate.

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Photo provided by Dave Crosby

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as soul trouble. Albeit the erectile malfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile malfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

In describing her immediate feelings toward Jared Loughner, the man who shot her and killed six others, Suzi Hileman used to speak of hate. That was before Hileman and her husband saw Loughner in court, where he was found incompetent to stand trial. When asked how she felt after the hearing, one in which Loughner acted out and had to be restrained by federal marshals, Hileman recounts a range of emotions.

“I went from fury to sad, and I don’t want to be sad. I don’t want to be sad.”

Her husband offers similar sentiments, calling Loughner, “pitiful” and childlike.  The Hilemans response rings true for a number of victim’s family members who encounter a defendant with a mental illness.

Nick and Amanda Wilcox, whose daughter, Laura, was murdered in 2001 at behavioral health clinic, also struggled when their daughter’s murderer, Scott Thorpe, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

“I don’t like the name of it. He is guilty. He did do it.”

Thorpe was later made competent to stand trial and sentenced to life in prison at the Napa State Hospital.  Since their daughter’s murder, the Wilcoxes have traveled the country, including Tennessee, advocating for mental health reform and death penalty repeal.

The experiences of the Hilemans and the Wilcoxes highlight the need for change in how we address and adjudicate crimes where the defendant shows clear signs of severe and persistent mental illness. We need a system that takes into consideration the need for accountability, but also recognizes the limited culpability of many with severe and persistent mental illness. One possible solution is being discussed in the North Carolina legislature this week. The bill, which will come before the House of Representatives either today or sometime next week, would require a pretrial hearing to determine if a defendant has severe mental disability that significantly impairs a persons ability to “appreciate the nature, consequences, or wrongfulness of the person’s conduct in the criminal offense; exercise rational judgment in relation to the criminal offense; or conform the person’s conduct to the requirements of law in connection with criminal offense.” If the defendant is found to fit the requirements, the trial would proceed, but the death penalty would be prohibited. This would allow for a guilty verdict while still recognizing the limited culpability of the defendant, not only acknowledging the seriousness of the illness, but avoiding a protracted appeals process for the victims’ families while saving the state millions of dollars.

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Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently published an editorial suggesting that juries in the state are ready to do away with capital punishment. In support of this argument, the editorial’s author points out that over the last four years only 3% of juries in first-degree murder trials handed out death sentences. “Pennsylvania juries clearly are more comfortable with the alternative sentence of life without parole, which assures that first-degree murder convicts will waste away behind bars.” The author lists a number of possible reasons for the shift in Pennsylvania, which houses the country’s fourth largest death row, including concerns about “government-sanctioned” executions, wrongful convictions, and data suggesting the penalty is unfairly applied to poor and minority defendants. The author also calls for an end to the death penalty in Pennsylvania and discusses recent legislation, including a bill to abolish the death penalty in the state.

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Photo courtesy of Don Shall

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

With the new tort reform bill soon to be signed by Governor Haslam, juries in Tennessee will now be limited in their ability to award compensation for “non-economic damages”, such as mental anguish, emotional distress, and loss of companionship for deaths caused by negligence or wrongful action. When discussing the legislation, our elected officials seem to focus primarily on the economic impact of the bill. Will it attract businesses to Tennessee? Will it mean more jobs? No one seems to be asking the more fundamental question, why don’t we trust jurors to give fair and just compensation to victims in wrongful death suits while continuing to ask them to make decisions that no one should ever be asked to make–who lives and who dies?

It seems incongruous that we trust jurors to make decisions about matters of ultimate significance when we appear not to trust them with ones of considerably less weight. The legislature tells us juries should not have the power to make decisions involving victim’s compensation. Perhaps we should take similar precautions with jurors in first-degree murder trials as well.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very much dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

In a recent New York Times op ed, Professor Bessel A. van der Kolk, psychiatrist at Boston University School of Medicine, reflects on the strides we have made in the U.S. since the Vietnam era  in naming and addressing post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers returning from war.  At the same time, progress has also been made in addressing post-traumatic stress in children.

Professor van der Kolk states that,  “For every soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of depression or PTSD, there are around 10 children in the United States who are traumatized by exposure to family violence, sexual abuse, neglect and assault, with consequences comparable to those of adult exposure to war-zone violence.”

However, President Obama’s 2012 budget proposes to reduce financing by 70 percent to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, a network created in 2001 in order to evaluate and develop treatments for traumatized children nationwide.  The network’s budget is currently $40 million — about the cost of keeping 40 soldiers fighting in Afghanistan for one year. This network documents and evaluates the most effective treatments for these children in order to help them become functioning members of society. Without treatment, some of these children will instead to0 easily become the next generation of Americans filling up our prisons and death rows.

This short-sighted budgetary action is yet one more example of sacrificing a preventative program to save a few bucks, but at the same time, creating extraordinary costs down the road, both financial and human. And such cuts are not only happening on the federal level, but the state level as well.  Effectively addressing such issues as post-traumatic stress in children will reduce violent crime rates as well as the cost of incarceration and the death penalty.

These children are living among us and are not going anywhere. We can address these issues now or later when more damage is done.  What’s it going to be?

Read the op ed here.

Picture by United Nations Photo

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile malfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Authors of a recent study in the journal Law & Psychology Review suggest jurors in capital trials may not fully understand the abilities of people diagnosed with mild to severe intellectual disabilities (referred to in the study as mental retardation). The study surveyed 888 adults who reported for jury duty and 87 mental health professionals. Participants were given a list of activities, such as the ability to maintain a romantic relationship or operate a car, and asked if a person with an intellectual disability could perform the task. Researches found a significant difference between the responses of jurors and mental health experts, with jurors “less likely than experienced mental health workers to see severe impairments in functioning as evidence” of an intellectual disability.

This study raises serious questions about the ability of jurors to analyze evidence concerning intellectual disabilities in death penalty trials, as required in Atkins v. Virginia. The Supreme Court, when ruling it unconstitutional to execute someone with an intellectual disability, implied that diagnostic criteria, such the guidelines created by the American Association on Intellectual and Development Disabilities and American Psychiatric Association, be used in determining whether someone suffers from an intellectual disability. Juror’s clear lack of knowledge about intellectual disabilities makes it extremely likely that we are sentencing people, constitutionally exempt from execution, to their death.

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Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile malfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Executions in the United States have once again caused problems for a pharmaceutical company. Early this year, Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. provider of sodium thiopental, a drug used during executions, ceased production after receiving pressure from its European manufacturing plants. Another pharmaceutical company, Lundbeck, finds itself in a similar position after some states, such as Texas and Mississippi, switched from the traditional three drug protocol to a single drug, pentobarbital. The switch occurred after the Drug Enforcement Agency confiscated large amounts of sodium thiopental following questions concerning the “legality of its import.” Lundbeck’s spokesperson, Anders Schroll, responded to recent developments, saying, “This is a misuse of our product. We are in an ethical dilemma where we are opposed to the use of our medication for capital punishment while at the same time we want to make sure that patients who benefit from our medication get access to it.” While Lundbeck has made no plans to cease production of pentobarbital, it has sent letters to 11 states imploring them not to use the drug for executions.

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Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong heartiness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be so dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

As warden of San Quentin State Prison, Jeanne Woodford’s job description required her to oversee executions. Her new position, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, will ask her to prevent them. Death Penalty Focus, a non-profit organization that works to abolish the death penalty, announced Woodford’s hiring last week. After working 25 years at San Quentin and then as corrections director for California, Woodford admits she could no longer continue implementing a failed policy that is exorbitantly expensive, discriminatory, and fails to make people safer. “The death penalty serves no one. It doesn’t serve the victims. It doesn’t serve prevention. It’s truly all about retribution.”

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Photo provided by lightenupitsjustfashion

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Ben Hall of Channel 5 News in Nashville recently featured the tragic story of William Runnells, the most recent Tennessee inmate suffering with severe mental illness to die in prison in the past few months.  Hall’s investigation shows that though Runnells was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he ended up in prison where correctional staff do not have the training or resources to properly address such needs, ultimately leading to Runnells’ tragic deaths as he was being restrained. Individuals suffering from these illnesses not only end up in prison but on death row as well. 

Hall points out that currently Tennessee has only 660 hospital beds available for such very ill individuals while in 1990, the state had 1,700 available beds.  Severe budget cuts have led to this decline.  A recent national study showed that currently prisons have 3 times the number of those with mental illness in their populations than do hospitals.

The reality is that the state chooses not to spend the money necessary to treat these individuals but will spend the money to incarcerate them, and in some cases, execute them when they go untreated and break the law or become violent. 

If Tennessee ended the death penalty, even if only for those with severe mental illness,  the millions of dollars saved could be spent better ensuring these individuals get the treatment they need before a tragedy occurs.

Watch the video here and then go to Ben Hall’s Facebook page to tell Channel 5 that we want more stories like this.

Picture by Tim Pearce

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be highly dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.