ASHCROFT GOES AFTER ASSISTED SUICIDE BY DRUGS

WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft sought Tuesday to override the
nation's only law allowing assisted suicide, declaring that taking the life
of a terminally ill patient is not a "legitimate medical purpose" for
federally controlled drugs.

Doctors who use such drugs to help patients die, as permitted under Oregon
law, face suspension or revocation of their licenses to prescribe drugs,
Ashcroft said in a letter to Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

The order does not call for criminal prosecution of doctors. And it does
stipulate that pain management is a valid medical use of controlled substances.

Still, right-to-die groups and other supporters of the Oregon law were
angry that Ashcroft reversed the June 1998 order by his predecessor, Janet
Reno, prohibiting federal drug agents from moving against doctors who use
Oregon's law.

"Given everything that the country is going through right now, with the
country trying to respond to anthrax, why John Ashcroft picked this moment
to inject this divisive issue into the public debate is just beyond me,"
said Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat and a former doctor. He
denounced the decision as an "unprecedented federal intrusion on Oregon's
ability to regulate the practice of medicine."

A spokesman for the Oregon attorney general's office said the state would
file motions today in U.S. District Court in Portland seeking to block the
order.

But some religious groups and anti-abortion organizations hailed the move
by Ashcroft.

"We felt that Reno had set up a very improper and bizarre situation that
had the act of killing patients with federal substances illegal in 49
states" but not in Oregon, said David O'Steen, executive director of the
National Right to Life Committee.

Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, said President George W. Bush had
made it clear that he opposed Oregon's law. "The president believes we must
value life and protect the sanctity of life at all stages," Lisaius said.

At least 70 terminally ill people have ended their lives since the Oregon
law took effect in 1997, according to the Oregon Health Division. All have
done so with a federally controlled substance such as a barbiturate.

Under the law, doctors may provide -- but not administer -- a lethal
prescription to terminally ill adult state residents. It requires that two
doctors agree the patient has less than six months to live, has voluntarily
chosen to die and is able to make health care decisions.

Some doctors worried that a side effect of Ashcroft's decision could be
that physicians and other medical professionals will be less likely to
provide adequate pain relief to very ill patients.

"If a physician is accused of misusing drugs, he's essentially under an
intense degree of investigation," said Robert Dernedde, executive director
of the Oregon Medical Association. "Appropriate pain management is going to
be compromised."

Dernedde also was concerned that doctor-patient confidentiality could be
compromised as drug agents sought to carry out the order. "We don't need to
have federal officials pawing through medical records looking for what they
might view as nonmedical," he said.

Oregon Death With Dignity and other proponents of the law complained that
the federal government was trampling on a states'-rights issue. Oregon
voters have twice approved referendums to allow physician-assisted suicides.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Ashcroft's order "is undoing Oregon's popular
will in the most undemocratic manner possible.o.o.o. Americans in every
corner of the nation are going to suffer needlessly."

But his Republican counterpart, Sen. Gordon Smith, said the government
should not condone the taking of life. "This is a matter of principle, not
a matter of politics," Smith said.

Smith said the Bush's administration had indicated that it may offer
guidelines for using federally controlled substances for pain management.

Ashcroft based his decision on a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in May that
said there was no exception in federal drug laws for the medical use of
marijuana to ease pain from cancer, AIDS and other illnesses.

The court did not change state laws allowing patients to use marijuana for
medical reasons but made the drug harder to obtain by denying patients the
right to claim "medical necessity" as a reason to circumvent a 1970 law
regulating controlled substances.

When Reno issued her order in 1998, she said she found no evidence the
Controlled Substances Act law was intended to displace states as the
primary regulators of the medical profession or override a state's
authority to determine what constitutes a legitimate medical practice.