What is "sodium thiopental"

n. (context pharmaceutical drug English) The drug phenobarbitone.

n. a long-acting barbiturate used as a sedative [syn: phenobarbital, phenobarbitone, Luminal, purple heart]

Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories, not to be confused with pentobarbital), thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic that is an analogue of thiobarbital. Sodium thiopental was a core medicine in the World Health Organization's " Essential Drugs List", which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic healthcare system, but was supplanted by propofol. It was previously the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States, but the U.S. manufacturer Hospira stopped manufacturing the drug and the EU banned the export of the drug for this purpose.