In Texas, new details about its execution drug underscore a closely guarded secret

A shield statute allows the state to withhold a telling piece of information: where Texas is finding a hard-to-get execution drug.

Texas, which historically drives the number of executions nationwide, is approaching a grim milestone of 600 people put to death by lethal injection since the early 1980s.

But for the past 10 years, a shield statute meant to protect the safety of those participating in the execution protocol has allowed the state to withhold a telling piece of information: where Texas is finding pentobarbital, the hard-to-get drug it exclusively uses to carry out executions.

The source of pentobarbital remains a closely guarded secret to the public, but records reviewed by NBC News stitch together the state’s cryptic acquisition process, including how much of the drug Texas has procured over the past year and the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been spent on transactions related to drug costs.

According to those records, in September 2024, Texas acquired 20 1-gram vials of pentobarbital, and in February it obtained eight 2.5-gram vials — enough, based on its protocol, for as many as eight executions.

The purchases, which are documented on Drug Enforcement Administration forms, redact the supplier’s information; the agency told NBC News it was unable to comment amid the ongoing federal government shutdown.