SETBACK FOR OREGON DOCTORS WHO ASSIST SUICIDES

Ashcroft Orders Agents To Revoke Prescription Licenses

Washington -- Attorney General John Ashcroft directed U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration agents yesterday to go after Oregon doctors in assisted
suicide cases, saying it is against federal law to dispense or use
controlled medications to help a terminally ill patient die.

The memo by Ashcroft, a strident critic of assisted suicide, is intended to
overrule an Oregon law that allows doctors to help patients who want to
hasten their deaths.

In declaring that such practices violate federal law, Ashcroft said he was
relying on the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in May that found no
exception in federal drug laws for the medical use of marijuana -- endorsed
as Prop. 215 by California voters in 1996 -- to ease pain from cancer, AIDS
and other illnesses.

Former President Bill Clinton's administration had filed that suit, aimed
at shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries in Northern California,
after first threatening the same action against doctors that Ashcroft took
yesterday -- revoking the prescription license of any physician who
recommended medical marijuana. Ashcroft's memo specifically allows for the
revocation of drug prescription licenses of doctors who participate in an
assisted suicide using federally controlled substances.

In a memo to DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson, Ashcroft said that assisted
suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" for prescribing, dispensing
or administering federally controlled substances. He said that the use of
such drugs by physicians to manage patients' pain is medically valid.

Ashcroft's directive reverses a June 1998 declaration by his predecessor,
Janet Reno. She barred federal agents from moving against doctors who, in
keeping with the requirements of Oregon's assisted suicide law, help
terminally ill patients end their lives. That law was passed by voters in
1994 and affirmed three years later.

Within hours of Ashcroft's announcement, Oregon officials vowed to go to
court to obtain an injunction blocking the directive. Supporters and
opponents predicted that the Supreme Court would ultimately decide the matter.

"It's beyond my comprehension why, in the face of what's happening in the
world today, that this would be a priority of any type for our attorney
general," said George Eighmey, executive director of the Compassion in
Dying Federation in Oregon.

The Oregon group was one of many that said Ashcroft's directive would have
a chilling effect on doctors nationwide over fears that their prescription
decisions will be second-guessed by drug agents with no medical expertise.

Critics of assisted suicide, including anti-abortion organizations and some
religious groups, hailed Ashcroft's action. Some said it would protect the
elderly and infirm in Oregon from pressure to take their own lives.

"This is a carefully crafted ruling that reassures doctors about their
ability to prescribe federally controlled drugs to relieve pain while
ensuring that the federal government does not facilitate assisted suicide,"
said Burke Balch, director of medical ethics at the National Right to Life
Committee.

Balch said the only doctors who will face increased scrutiny are those who
fill out state paperwork admitting that they have participated in an
assisted suicide.

Under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, doctors may provide -- but not
administer -- a lethal prescription to terminally ill adult state
residents. The law requires the assessment of two physicians that the
patient has less than six months to live, has chosen to die voluntarily and
is able to make health care decisions.

Seventy Oregon residents have used the law to end their lives. Another
half-dozen or so patients have completed the application process and have
their prescriptions in hand; a few dozen more are in the middle of the
application process and could be affected by Ashcroft's directive.

Barbara Coombs Lee of Compassion in Dying said the relatively small number
of suicides has disproved opponents' predictions that the law would cause a
dramatic increase in suicides. "We now have four years of very careful
implementation during which we have only seen a few people use the law
under extraordinary and compelling circumstances," she said.

She rejected Ashcroft's linking of the assisted suicide issue with the
medical marijuana case, in which the Supreme Court essentially put an
Oakland "buyers' club" out of business.

In its ruling in May, the court said there is no exception in federal drug
laws for the medical use of marijuana to ease pain from cancer, AIDS and
other illnesses.

"It's easy to distinguish the federal government's ability to put these
buyer clubs out of business from what the federal government is trying to
do in this case, which is override state determination of what is (a)
legitimate medical purpose for medication already in common use and under
regulation by the state," Lee said. "Marijuana is not a medication in
common use." [Ms Lee is in error on this point. At last report, Oregon had
over 1,800 registered medical marijuana users, as opposed to just 70
assisted suicides. - DG ]

Oregon officials plan to argue that Ashcroft's directive would have
"dramatic and irreversible repercussions on the state," said Kevin Neely, a
spokesman for the Oregon attorney general's office. He said state lawyers
would go to U.S. District Court in Portland today to seek a temporary
restraining order and a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of
Ashcroft's directive.