SUICIDE LAW UNAFFECTED: COURT DECISION'S IMPACT MISUNDERSTOOD

The logic of last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on medical
marijuana was inescapable: Only Congress, not the states, can change
the federal law prohibiting all uses of marijuana. Oregonians must now
guard against those who would extend that logic to an area where it
does not apply: Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law.

It's easy to see how medical marijuana laws came to be linked to
Oregon's unique law allowing people to seek a doctor's help in ending
a terminal illness. Both deal with federally controlled drugs -
marijuana in one case, prescription drugs in the other. If one type of
state law conflicts with the federal Controlled Substances Act, as the
Supreme Court ruled on May 14, it seems reasonable to conclude that
the conflict would invalidate the physician-assisted suicide law as
well.

Sen. Gordon Smith made the connection in a speech in The Dalles last
month: "Oregon's law ... violates a federal law, the Controlled
Substances Act," Smith said. "So Oregon passes a law and says we'll
use these substances for lethal purposes even though federal law says
we can't."

President George Bush made the same point in an interview with The
Oregonian last year: "It is the proper role of the federal government
to regulate controlled substances," then-Gov. Bush said. "That's been
around a lot longer than the Oregon vote."

But the parallel between medical marijuana and assisted suicide is a
false one. There are two important differences: First, the Controlled
Substances Act lists marijuana as a drug for which there are no
approved uses. The drugs used in physician-assisted suicides - mainly
barbiturates - are classed as drugs for which medical uses are
recognized. Second, medical practice is regulated by the states, not
the federal government. Oregon has the right to enact laws defining
physician-assisted suicide as being within the scope of accepted
medical practice.

The U.S. Justice Department already has explored the question of
whether federal drug laws take precedence over Oregon's
physician-assisted suicide law. In 1998, the department found "no
evidence" that Congress, in approving the Controlled Substances Act,
"intended to displace the states as the primary regulators of the
medical profession, or to override a state's determination of what
constitutes legitimate medical practice in the absence of a federal
law prohibiting that practice."

Opponents can't invoke an existing federal law to invalidate Oregon's
physician-assisted suicide law. The best they can do is ask Congress
to pass a new federal law banning assisted suicide, though crafting
such a law without intruding too heavily on states' rights or standard
medical practice has so far proven difficult. Smith, Bush and others
would be better advised to let Oregonians decide this matter - as
they've done by approving the law twice at the polls.