Denmark asked United States to stop using the medicine for executions

By HUI JAN M. OLSEN and SYLVIA, Associated Press

Britain said Thursday it will block the export of injection lethal three drugs to the United States and also urges a ban at European level on the Americans from drug sales.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said that a block on the export of pentobarbital, potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide would be formalized in a few days. In November, Britain has blocked exports of use sedative sodium thiopental in executions after a legal challenge to a group of human rights.

"We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and are clear that British drugs should not be used to perform lethal injections,", said the cable. "Because of the importance and the urgency of the situation it is a matter on which we felt that we had to take the lead."

Britain has urged the European Commission to extend the ban on the export of all the nations of the European Union, said cable.

Reprieve, the group based in London for the rights of prisoner who has requested the ban, welcomed the new, but she said imposing the death penalty by lethal injection U.S. States are now turning to a Danish company, Lundbeck A/s, for supplies of pentobarbital.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Denmark, said that she will call on the United States, like Texas and Ohio to stop using this drug.

Pentobarbital is a sedative with a variety of medical uses including the treatment of the seizures of epilepsy and other conditions requiring some form of sedation. It is also often used to suppress the animals. Since the end of last year, it was used in the United States for lethal injections as supplies of sodium thiopental is becoming rare.

Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen, stated that it could not act directly against Lundbeck because the drug is produced by a plant in Kansas.

Pentobarbital was used to execute prisoners in Ohio and Oklahoma. U.S. fellow States of Mississippi and Arizona also considering switching the drugs for lethal injection.

Lundbeck has written letters to us prison authorities asking them not to use pentobarbital to lethal injection, but with little effect. The pharmaceutical industry, whose best-sellers include drugs for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders, is under pressure from groups of human rights take stronger measures, such as the rewriting of the distribution contracts with clauses prohibiting the sale of pentobarbital in U.S. prisons.